Although my computer works quite well, and is fast, I suspect I have a
bug of some kind on it although I run Adaware, spybot and AVG fairly
regularly. Anyway, my problem is if I go into internet explorer and
type in an email address, the machine wont always find the page. The
little green bars start appearing, get to about 4 of them, then it
'times out' if that is the correct expression. Other times, all the
bars appear, it says 'opening page' on the left hand bottom of the
page but leaves a blank screen. Often this happens with sites that are
on my favorites list. for example, it won't ket me get on ebay,
www.ae.com, www.asos.com etc. etc. I am not particularly computer
literate, but would be capable (probably) of following simple
instructions. Hopefully this is something I can achieve by myself
rather than have to call my computer person out who lives the other
side of town and is reluctant to come over this way!! I am in the UK

---

Clarification of Question by andastre-ga on 26 Dec 2005 10:16 PST

Re reply from tuka-ga, My computer has windows professional and I have
Mozilla Firefox. When I tried typing the IP address of these sites,
ae.com and asos.com, on ae.com I still get a blank page and on bottom
left corner, it says "waitng for www.ae.com" and when I type in
asos.com (or the IP address) it says "transferring data from...." but
also reveals nothing but the title of ASOS and the rest is a blank
screen. this is definitely not because of  the sites being active,
because it happens at all times and is a recent problem. I have also
tried these sites using different browsers. When I tried the ping test
as suggested, i got good results from google, but request times out
from both asos.com and ae.com . Also, I tried ebay.com with the IP
address, and the same thing happened. Nothing. It will let me get onto
other sites though without problems. So I guess something is stopping
my web browser from latching onto certain sites. That is why I assumed
it might be a virus.

---

Request for Question Clarification by bookface-ga on 26 Dec 2005 12:04 PST

Hello andastre, thanks for choosing Google! Answers.

"... but also reveals nothing but the title of ASOS and the rest is a blank
screen ..."

By this do you mean the HTML title for the page, the one that appears
in the top of your web browser next to the name of the browser? Or the
heading at the top of the page below the address bar? Or just the
www.asos.com web site address title in the status bar?

I have a couple of suggestions:

1) Check your HOSTS file.

Go to Start, Run... and type: %windir%\system32\drivers\etc

There should be a file here called HOSTS without any extension.
Rename it to HOSTS.txt, and see if anything got better.
This shouldn't break anything except maybe some ad blocking.
Try one of the problem web pages again at this point.

2) Check your network settings.

Open a cmd prompt as described below, and type ipconfig at the prompt.
To select text, simply drag the mouse over it. Highlight the response
to ipconfig, right click, and the text will be copied to the
clipboard. Paste your repsonse here, please. Also, are you running
your computer behind a router or is this a direct connection to the
internet? Are you dialing in with a modem or using a broadband
service?

If you're using a router, do other computers plugged into the router
work? If you're using a modem, do other computer work when dialing in
to the same account?

3) Check your browser.

Download and run HijackThis from here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

( If you can't reach that page, try:
http://216.180.233.162/~merijn/downloads.html
And if this works instead, you probably have the CoolWebSearch browser hijack.)

You may find some other useful tools on that page as well, but you
should at least start with HijackThis. The latest version is 1.99.1

Ask for a system scan + save to a logfile. Copy and paste your results here.
Click the "Config ..." button at the bottom right, "Misc tools" at the
top right. Check both checkboxes at the top and click Generate
Startuplist Log. Post those results here too. These will give us a lot
more information about your computer, and hopefully we can solve your
problem!

- bookface-ga

---

Clarification of Question by andastre-ga on 26 Dec 2005 13:32 PST

Re queation about Asos, in this instance, it looks as if the page is
about to be revealed, then it stops, having only revealed the name of
the website - this is actually oart of the home page and not in any
title bar. The green squares at the bottoom of the page are not fully
revealed. The bit saying "transferring data from.... is on the address
bar (or whatever it is called) at the bottom of the page.
I checked the Hosts file as suggested, but four icons came up - one
was titled imhosts   . Is this the one you meant?
What is a cmd prompt?
I am using a router, but there are no other computers plugged into the system. 
I also have a radio link, but at the moment, there are no other
computers using this either. I am using a broadband connection which
is directly connected into the internet.
I tried to download Hijackthis, but it produced a list of files and I
wasn't sure what to do at this point....
Sorry that I  am not more computer literate.....

---

Request for Question Clarification by bookface-ga on 26 Dec 2005 15:44 PST

Sorry I wasn't more clear, here is a direct link:
http://www.merijn.org/files/hijackthis.zip

Or if you don't have an unzipping program, here is a copy on my web site:
http://bookface.frihost.net/ga/609799/HijackThis1991.exe


It is possible to not have a HOSTS file, and in fact I was suggesting
that you disable yours. Though based on your description of events I
am fairly doubtful it is at fault, I still recommend double-checking
it. You can even check it within HijackThis; under Misc Tools you can
find an option "Open hosts file manager". If you get a message about
not having a hosts file, don't worry about it any more, all is well.

- bookface-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by bookface-ga on 26 Dec 2005 15:49 PST

Just realized I was being unclear again! What I meant was, don't worry
about the Hosts file if HijackThis tells you it's not there. You
should still definitely post the rest of your HijackThis log, as this
is my best bet right now about where things are going wrong.

I also am not quite sure what you mean by little green boxes on the
ASUS page. I do see their web site name (with the .com part written
going up vertically) but no boxes.

- bookface-ga

---

Clarification of Question by andastre-ga on 27 Dec 2005 01:16 PST

By Little green boxes at bottom of page I mean the window at the
bottom right hand corner of a google page which fills itself with
green squares when a page is being downloaded. Basically the box is
filled when the page is downloaded fully, but only one or two green
boxes (squares) appear when something is preventing the page
downloading fully.

Regrettably, this behaviour can be common for a virus free computer.

There are many reasons why your connection would "time out" and I can
give you a few tricks to try to determine whether or not it is indeed
a virus:

1) - Use the website's IP address instead of just typing its name into
your browser. Here are some examples:

for the websites you listed

http://www.ae.com would be: http://170.224.39.72
http://www.asos.com would be: http://135.196.8.67


If the IP address will not load, there is definately a problem with
either your web browser, internet connection, or the website itself
that you are trying to access. If it does load, I suggest moving to
step 2 and trying another web browser, or calling your ISP and telling
them that your computer is not properly resolving hosts, and they can
help you to fix that problem.

2) Try a different web browser.
Arguably, the best browser for Windows is FireFox. In my personal
experience, it is faster than Internet Explorer, and in cases where
your connection is "timing out" sometimes it's because of the method
your browser uses to connect to the site you're requesting.

You can try downloading FireFox for free at:
http://www.mozilla.com/

3) Hit the "Stop" button and the reload button, or click inside your
address bar, and press enter again.

Since this is the holiday season, certain websites are extremely busy
and, at times, will not load correctly. In my personal experience,
this will fix "time-out" problems for sites that are busy.

Depending on your internet connection, 30 seconds should be plenty of
time for your browser to communicate with the webserver and to start
downloading the page you are requesting. If you are on cable or dsl
(high speed broadband) internet, the page should also be fully
downloaded and displayed 30 seconds.

4) Call your Internet Service Provider and ask if they have a proxy
address you can use. A proxy will speed up the time it takes you to
communicate with the website you are trying to view and will also
speed up the time it takes your browser to download the information
from the site.

Your ISP will also walk you through setting up the proxy in your web
browser, however if you have any problems at all, I can walk you
through the set-up, all we need is the address for the proxy server.

Here is some information on how a proxy works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server

5) You may also want to "test" your internet connectivity and your
ability to resolve hostnames to IP addresses, using the command
prompt.

If you are running Windows XP, go to:
the Start button at the bottom left of your screen,
then go to Run
and type into the box "cmd" and press enter (If you are running
Windows 95/98/ME then type "command" into the box and press enter)

A black command prompt box will open up.

to test your internet connection try typing (without the quotes):

"ping www.google.com"

You will get results that should look similar to the following:

--

Pinging www.l.google.com [66.102.7.104] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.102.7.104: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=246
Reply from 66.102.7.104: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=246
Reply from 66.102.7.104: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=246
Reply from 66.102.7.104: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=246

Ping statistics for 66.102.7.104:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 32ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 32ms
--

If you get results which say:

--
Pinging www.l.google.com [66.102.7.104] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 66.102.7.104:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
--

Then you need to call your ISP and ask them to check your modem or
your connection, as it does not appear to be properly recieving data.

(You may want to try a few websites, as some will be online but will
not respond to the ping command... google always responds, so it is a
safe bet that if you are recieving no reply, you have a problem with
your internet connection)

---

You can also try to "ping" a website to see if it is online, however
most online websites may not reply to the ping command... If they
don't reply you will see "Request timed out." but you can obtain their
IP address through this method.

Eg. Let's try www.asos.com - which doesn't reply to the ping command
even while online:

--
Pinging www.asos.com [135.196.8.67] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
--

Now the number in the brackets is the IP address for www.asos.com

You may type that number into your web browser, and you may have
success. If you do, call your ISP and let them know that you are
having problems resolving IP addresses. You shouldn't ever have to
type in the IP address to access a website, but if it solves your
problem, you know for sure that is what's messing up.


------------------

This is a bunch of information, I'd suggest trying the steps number by
number, and see how your success is. I doubt you have a virus and I
would fathom to guess it's simply internet traffic or a problem with
your web browser or ISP. Try getting a proxy from your ISP, you will
definately see a speed increase!

Let me know how things turn out =)

-Mike

One thing I didn't mention:

To exit out of the command prompt (the black box with white text),
type "exit" without the quotation marks, and you will return to
windows, or the command prompt box will close.

If you are unable to type exit into the command prompt, hold the Ctrl
key, and press C. Hitting "Control + C" will stop (break) whatever is
going on in the command prompt, and bring you back to the prompt,
where you can type in the exit command.
 
Good Luck =)

-Mike

andastre - I have another suggestion for you.

Since ebay is loading fine, and google as well, it could just be that
your computer is either taking a long time to download the website, or
your computer is taking a long time to load the information that it
has downloaded from the website.

As a test, we can try to reduce the loading time by doing the following:

1) Open Firefox.
2) Go to "Tools" at the top, and select "Options..."
3) On the left, click "Web Features"
4) UNcheck these boxes: (you want NO checkmark in them)
   "Load Images"
   "Enable Java"
   "Enable JavaScript"
5) Click Ok at the bottom.

Now close Firefox and reopen it, and try going to:

http://170.224.39.72
(this is the american eagle website)

The site should load, although all of the information and pictures
will be missing. What you are looking for here, is for the site to
finish loading and be displayed in Firefox. (Although it will be
missing all pictures and will give you a message saying "YOUR BROWSER
DOES NOT SUPPORT JAVASCRIPT OR HAS THE OPTION DISABLED.")

If this is the case, your computer's internet connection is working
fine and it is simply a matter of your computer being slow at
processing the site after it's been downloaded.

If you still have the same issue of the site not being downloaded
100%, you should call your internet service provider and let them walk
you through ensuring your modem and connection is working properly.


To restore Firefox back to "normal":

1) Open Firefox.
2) Go to "Tools" at the top, and select "Options..."
3) On the left, click "Web Features"
4) Click these boxes: (You WANT a checkmark in them)
   "Load Images"
   "Enable Java"
   "Enable JavaScript"
5) Click Ok at the bottom.


Good Luck

-Mike

Hi Mike....

Tried all that. Still no go. I will try my internet service provider
and see where we go from there. Many thanks for all your help. I
really appreciate the time you have spent trying to help my situation.

Happy New Year

Alan