Startup Pregnant Pause

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I go onto the internet, possibly enjoying the web for a little, but then
there comes a time when the computer just hangs for about 5 minutes. I
can't start any new applications (not even the Task Manager) and all web
based programs refuse to respond (these include Outlook, and open emails,
Windows Messenger or MSN).

It only happens once after restarting computer, from then on everything is
fine. The hold up only happens when I start using a Web Based application.
I am sure it's not email related though because I can send/receive messages,
outlook only stops when I open an email.

Thanks in advance.
 
Next time it happens open Task Manager and find out which process or
processes are occupying most of the CPU's time during the hang. That may
provide an important clue.
 
See this for possible help:
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/archive/answers2.htm#connection_freeze

If no joy....

This may be caused by spyware/malware that's gotten installed on
your system. Use Ad-Aware, Windows Defender and/or Spybot Search & Destroy
to remove it.

Windows Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
Good sites on how to install and use Spybot -
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/tutorial/index.html
http://tomcoyote.com/SPYBOT/index1.php

Also download a winsock repair tool, to have just in case cleaning up
anything found breaks it -

Winsock repair tools:
LSPFix- all versions of Windows http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.zip
Winsock2 Fix- Win98, ME
http://www.bu.edu/pcsc/internetaccess/winsock2fix.html
LavaSoft- all versions of Windows-
http://digital-solutions.co.uk/lavasoft/whndnfix.zip

More information here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html
http://spywarewarrior.com/sww-help.htm

If no joy, in IE go to Tools...Internet Options...Advanced tab, Browsing
section, uncheck "Enable third-party browser extensions", click Apply, click
Okay, reboot. If that solves your problem, then more troubleshooting is
needed to find out exactly which program, or Browser Helper Object (BHO) is
causing this problem. You don't want to leave it at that, as some BHOs are
useful or necessary - like Adobe Acrobat for reading .pdf files or an
essential component of Norton AV. Get BHODemon -
http://www.definitivesolutions.com/bhodemon.htm - read all about BHOs.
Disable all items, and then gradually replace one or two at a time to narrow
down the culprit.

Or if you have IE 6 SP-2 you can do this within the browser:
How to manage Internet Explorer add-ons in Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;883256

If all the above fails, then the problem could be something new that the
spyware cleaners above don't have in their databases yet. In that case....
HijackThis direct download:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip
Tutorial on how to use HijackThis:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/htlogtutorial.html
Then post it's output log to the forum here for analysis and feedback by the
parasite experts:
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/
http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30
Or one of the other HijackThis Logs forums listed here:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/forums.html

Or try this program to get some of the most nasty malware:
CWShredder direct download:
http://aumha.org/downloads/cwshredder.zip

An alternate resource for all of this and more:
http://www.aumha.org/secure.htm
 
As I've mentioned previously, Task Manager will not open until after the
pregnant pause, no applications start up.

But I have opened 'Task Manager' on one occassion anticipating the pause.
During the pause I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary in CPU time.
I feel it's just some network checking thing happening and waiting for a
timeout.

Thanks

Dominic
 
Well, your comment sure was exhaustive. Ok, seems it does relate to an
'External 3rd party Browser extension'. Well, I've still got to work out
which extension is particularly the culprit, but thanks for all the info you
gave me.

Dom
 
Perhaps I shouldn't stick my nose in, but Jon's approach (supplying
links) is one I try to use myself on those occasions when I answer
questions.

I call it the "if thou teach a man to fish..." method, because it
provides much more than just an answer. I'm grateful that many of my
questions were handled that way in my newbie days.

Also: If someone or some organization has already spent time creating a
detailed explanation, why re-invent the wheel? Particularly in
newsgroups, which were designed for relatively short plaintext messages.

OK, back to minding my business.
 
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