Computer taking too long to connect to the Internet:

I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Avast Professional, Windows Defender
and Windows firewall.

(1) TB HD
Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz 3.40 GHz
Ram 12.0 GB
System type : 64-bit operating system

I also have

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 with XP, SP3, with Spywareblaster,
Avast, Malwarebytes and Windows firewall.


Seagate Barracuda 7200 160 Gb HD
Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 CPU 1.80 GHz
Ram 1.79 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM
System type : 32-bit operating system

and (external hard drives)

Seagate Backup Plus 1(TB) 2.5 USB Portable HD

WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200
RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal
Hard Drive



My immediate problem is with my Dell 8500 computer
Ethernet in that it's having problems logging on. I
usually don't have any problem but lately it just
cycles and never logs on and I have to go into
troubleshooting and make two scans before it finally
logs on.

The first time this happened I thought it was because
I hadn't powered off the computer but now it happens
even if I power the computer off.

So I'm wondering if I'm infected with something or do I
need to change some settings?

Thanks,
Robert

Hello Paul,


I'm typing this on the 8200

As far as the 8500,

Unfortunately, I can't run any of your tests you provided at this time.

What's happening is that when I power up the Ethernet isn't connecting.
I thought this might also be related to one time where I wanted to re-start
it and the 'log-off sound' hadn't closed and I forced it closed.

The troubleshooting I spoke of is a feature of the Ethernet connection. It
happened again as I described above tonight but I finally connected but
FF wasn't responding. So I opted to restart computer to hopefully clear it
and that was a good 20 minutes ago and it still hasn't logged off, just
keeps cycling in a loop. So what do I do? Just wait it out and eventually
it'll restart?

If I need to replace the HD didn't we set up the backup HD to serve also
as a replacement HD should I need it?

Thanks,
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,


I'm typing this on the 8200

As far as the 8500,

Unfortunately, I can't run any of your tests you provided at this time.

What's happening is that when I power up the Ethernet isn't connecting.
I thought this might also be related to one time where I wanted to re-start
it and the 'log-off sound' hadn't closed and I forced it closed.

The troubleshooting I spoke of is a feature of the Ethernet connection. It
happened again as I described above tonight but I finally connected but
FF wasn't responding. So I opted to restart computer to hopefully clear it
and that was a good 20 minutes ago and it still hasn't logged off, just
keeps cycling in a loop. So what do I do? Just wait it out and eventually
it'll restart?

If I need to replace the HD didn't we set up the backup HD to serve also
as a replacement HD should I need it?

Thanks,
Robert

Does control-alt-delete work on the 8500 now stuck in
the cycling loop ?

And it's not clear from your description, what
screens are presented while cycling. Does the
BIOS screen show at all (implying it is restarting) ?
If the OS is not able to quit, what screens show up ?
Does Task Manager say some program will not quit ?
Or is the OS non-responsive completely ?

*******

As for the backup drive being a substitute for
the current C: drive, you should be able to
connect that backup drive via the USB cable,
to the 8200, and see what partitions are visible
on it. Later, when you are finished with the
drive, remember to use the "Safely Remove" before
unplugging the USB cable, then power off the
external drive (if it has a power switch).

If the external USB drive has "System Reserved" and
it has a C: type partition (pagefile and hiberfile
evident at the root level, a Windows folder and so on),
then you can assume that's how you set it up.
I don't keep notes here, on what is on each of
your hard drives :-) I remember having this
discussion with you, but you hold all the details.
And a quick look at the drive, before removing
the drive and putting it in the 8500, should tell
you what you need to know.

If I saw this in Disk Management

USB drive
+-----+------------------------------------------+
| MBR | Backups |
+-----+------------------------------------------+

then that drive is not going to boot.

If instead, the drive contents were...

USB drive
+-----+------------------+------+----------------+
| MBR | System Reserved | Win7 | Backups |
+-----+------------------+------+----------------+

then yes, that should be ready to go. Assuming
the Win7 was cloned from your original 8500 hard disk.

You would pull the drive from the USB enclosure,
and install it inside the 8500, in place of the
other drive if you want. I would use the backup drive
standalone for the first boot, just so you can
verify all is well with it. And with the rest
of the 8500 hardware. If it's still "looping and
acting crazy", then some other hardware problem
is present in the 8500...

And if the 8500 is not responding to control-alt-delete,
then yes, eventually you're going to have to power
it off via the button on the front. But that is the
option of last resort. I've only had to do that
once or twice in the last five years. I consider
the hardware to have "defeated me", if I have
to resort to that :-)

Paul

When it was attempting to power off the 8500 it was a blank
screen and the OS unresponsive. The ctrl-alt-del didn't work
so I had to power it off.

I should have noted which screen this was taking place on.
Its the Desktop. It seems to start normally and then once on
the desktop is when the Ethernet logon starts the cycling but
today it came up normally after I recovered from powering
off. It gave me (3) choices to re-start the computer because
it had not powered off normally and I selected normal start-up.

I'm thinking this also may have been caused by me leaving the
computer on unattended for the most part all night a few times.
Is that possible?

I ran the Event Viewer three times because it said it did not
install properly each time and still hasn't left a desktop icon:

http://i62.tinypic.com/jp9df6.jpg

http://i57.tinypic.com/2wdr6dx.jpg

http://i61.tinypic.com/2sb937m.jpg

Here's the External HD:

http://i60.tinypic.com/2ilzl9d.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/28bbgiw.jpg

Does like I can use it as a replacement HD or how
do I use Disk Management for the backup HD?


Thanks,
Robert

My mistake, The first images were from HD-Tune
not Event Viewer. I did check Event Viewer
though and it had allot of errors and alerts.

So I went to your other link:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32523...ader-problems/

but I don't have a Windows 7 install disc just the
Recovery Disk we made and a Drivers and Documentation
disk that came with the Dell which contains Device drivers,
Setup Guide, Users Guide, Dell Display Manager. That's
all. Compared to that my Dell 8200 came with extensive
documentation and disks.

I guess my main concern here is that it's taking
too long for the Ethernet to connect once on the
desktop and recently hasn't been without intervention
by myself, clicking on the troubleshooting.

Remember I mentioned previously during one of our
sessions you had me uncheck a setting where before
to connect I had to always go through troubleshooting
to connect and since unchecking it I connected without
troubleshooting which I should be able to anyways.


Robert

Mark Twain wrote:

snip

I guess my main concern here is that it's taking
too long for the Ethernet to connect once on the
desktop and recently hasn't been without intervention
by myself, clicking on the troubleshooting.

Remember I mentioned previously during one of our
sessions you had me uncheck a setting where before
to connect I had to always go through troubleshooting
to connect and since unchecking it I connected without
troubleshooting which I should be able to anyways.

The troubleshooter stuff is covered here, and I expect
you've been using this to get the LAN to work.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...r-in-Windows-7

But before going any further, I'd want to make sure
of the symptoms first. Does the network icon
appear in the right hand corner immediately
at startup ? Is there a notification that
there is a problem with the Windows Firewall ?
Would this have something to do with your AV software ?
Any recent changes there ?

There's a bug in WinXP, where any time a .NET security
update comes in, the ngen step is missing, and it causes
the Windows Firewall (and the network icon) to be
slow to appear. That bug doesn't exist on Win7.

There is a script to reset a TCP/IP stack, but there
is no reason to be waving that about. And that code should
be in the Troubleshooter anyway. Having it as a
separate script, would be no different than using
the Troubleshooter.

You can make a new network connection, in the network
connections control panel, but again, I don't want
to mess up your machine by suggesting stuff like that.
That would effectively restore the protocol stack,
which is a tiny step more than a troubleshooter
might do. And again, without symptoms or error
messages (Event Viewer), that could make
things worse rather than better.

And there's a difference between seeing the
network icon in the right hand corner (implying
the general availability of networking), versus
some small problem connecting within a browser
(like to your Hotmail). In such a case, it could
be a browser problem or a DNS problem, and not
a "general" networking problem. That's why
nailing down the symptoms first is important,
and the more evidence (error messages) the
better. For example, say we spend all day
messing up your networking stack, only
to find it's something else entirely that
is at fault. I don't mind wasting the
time, but I do mind making a big mess
for somebody...

Paul

Hi Paul,

As I said the troubleshooting is part of the Ethernet
link located on the System Tray, lower right hand
corner.

At startup sometimes there's an orange ball replaced by the
Ethernet icon and a blue circle in the lower right that cycles
There is no notification of any problems with Windows
Firewall or AV software. I update the Anti-virus programs
on both the 8500 and 8200 on a regular basis and run scans.

I agree with everything your saying and better to take this
in small steps to see if it continues to happen and what are
the signs so we can discover the causes.

Typically, it takes several minutes to logon the Ethernet and
several more minutes to load all the programs and this is
on a good day. What raised my concern was this was taking
twice as long and the last couple of days it wasn't connecting
with the Ethernet at all until I went into troubleshooting and
the episode last night where it failed to restart.

I will keep you posted.

btw, was my external HD alright to use as a backup?

Thanks,
Robert

I should have stated that to open up the trouble
shooting I click the Ethernet link and it gives me
the option to Troubleshoot.

R

Mark Twain wrote:
Hi Paul,

As I said the troubleshooting is part of the Ethernet
link located on the System Tray, lower right hand
corner.

At startup sometimes there's an orange ball replaced by the
Ethernet icon and a blue circle in the lower right that cycles
There is no notification of any problems with Windows
Firewall or AV software. I update the Anti-virus programs
on both the 8500 and 8200 on a regular basis and run scans.

I agree with everything your saying and better to take this
in small steps to see if it continues to happen and what are
the signs so we can discover the causes.

Typically, it takes several minutes to logon the Ethernet and
several more minutes to load all the programs and this is
on a good day. What raised my concern was this was taking
twice as long and the last couple of days it wasn't connecting
with the Ethernet at all until I went into troubleshooting and
the episode last night where it failed to restart.

I will keep you posted.

btw, was my external HD alright to use as a backup?

Thanks,
Robert

Now, see, that "blue circle" you spotted is a key element.
The blue circle observation helped me find this. Third party
software seems to be playing a part (and not malware for
a change). Have you added a new HP printer lately ?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...0587d92?auth=1

Paul

Hello Paul,

The description of the blue circle is identical to mine
but its the Ethernet connecting that causes mine.

For the last hour I have tried to connect via the Ethernet
and all attempts have failed including trouble shooting
which I do by right clicking the Ethernet icon and it
give me the following options:

Troubleshoot Problems
Open Network and Sharing Center

When restarting it continues to give me this message:

waiting for Explorer.exe playing logoff sound,...

I tried canceling it but to no affect and had to force it
closed each time. Maybe that is where the problem lies
or part of it although last night it closed normally.

I then thought of going into the Administrator's Account
and do a System Restore.

It only gave me one shot at it which was whenever I restarted
the computer because the OS was unresponsive after that
although I could pull up Task Manager.

The attempt failed because of a unspecified error (0xc0000022)

I then tried again but with a different date:

http://i58.tinypic.com/1e7190.jpg

After the last attempt I found that I was online
in the Admin Account so I was able to write this
but don't know whats going to happen when I try to
go to the User Account.

Robert

Luckily, I was able to just switch Users
and didn't have to log off which I'm a bit
leary of doing just now. Its taken nearly
2 hours to get online and post this! Whew!
So I'm leaving the 8500 on.

'Something' is definitely wrong,....I should
be able to log on without any hassle whatsoever,
and I should have been able to do a System Restore.

Thoughts/Suggestions,.?
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Luckily, I was able to just switch Users
and didn't have to log off which I'm a bit
leary of doing just now. Its taken nearly
2 hours to get online and post this! Whew!
So I'm leaving the 8500 on.

'Something' is definitely wrong,....I should
be able to log on without any hassle whatsoever,
and I should have been able to do a System Restore.

Thoughts/Suggestions,.?
Robert

Innocent effects that strike in two places ?
Not likely.

Is your antivirus still functional ?
Can you do an update on the antivirus - does
it get to the network (i.e. when the network
is eventually available) ?

I would think a little MBAM (on demand scanner)
would be a good idea at this point. That's the
free version that does a scan while Windows is running.

I don't think "something broke". There's got to be
more to this than a single normal failure.

You could make a Kaspersky CD using the 8200,
and boot the 8500 with the newly made CD and
see what it uncovers. The file here is listed
as 375MB, and you take that file into a CD burner
program, and convert the ISO9660 file into
a bootable CD.

http://support.kaspersky.com/8092

You don't need to update the database, for a quick first
pass. You need to tick boxes in the interface
to select partitions to scan. On a computer with
a single OS drive, it will probably get the
drive letters right. It's when multiple disks
with different OSes are present, that the letters
it uses for the partitions are all mixed up.

I think MBAM would be a better tool for this, but
the thing is, you have plenty of experience with
how hard it is to get it running. Whereas the Kaspersky
CD, should work every time. If does an offline scan,
and Windows is not running when the Kaspersky
CD is booted. If it finds any suspicious files,
it will prepare a report.

Paul

Yes, My Avast Professional is running and I
just updated all the anti-virus/malware programs.

Having taken 2 hours to get to this point
you can understand why I'm not thrilled with
having to logoff to run the Kaspersky CD boot.

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
Yes, My Avast Professional is running and I
just updated all the anti-virus/malware programs.

Having taken 2 hours to get to this point
you can understand why I'm not thrilled with
having to logoff to run the Kaspersky CD boot.

Robert


Then MBAM it is. You can use
that while Windows is running.

Orange download button...

https://www.malwarebytes.org/

mbam-setup-2.2.0.1024.exe 22,908,888 bytes

I presume it'll do the usual thing, of downloading
definition updates.

Paul

On Sunday, October 18, 2015 at 11:21:05 PM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Mark Twain wrote:
Yes, My Avast Professional is running and I
just updated all the anti-virus/malware programs.

Having taken 2 hours to get to this point
you can understand why I'm not thrilled with
having to logoff to run the Kaspersky CD boot.

Robert


Then MBAM it is. You can use
that while Windows is running.

Orange download button...

https://www.malwarebytes.org/

mbam-setup-2.2.0.1024.exe 22,908,888 bytes

I presume it'll do the usual thing, of downloading
definition updates.

Paul

But I already have Malwarebtyes on my systems

Robert