Problem with computer 'stalling'

[johnelliott]

A friend of mine sent me this email, anyone got any suggestions?
"Just wondering if you could help, I have a problem when I'm online my pc stalls, this stall can last anything from 3 secs to 30 secs, during this stall nothing will work, it's been like this for about 3 weeks, and it's getting to be a pain. If you can shed any light on fixing this problem I would be very grateful."

John

[deltaf]

Anything running in the background that shouldnt be?
Do a ctr-alt -del once to see whats happening in the background.
Possible keylogger software installed, or spyware thats using his bandwidth to report its stats back to the remote host.
Or viral problem maybe?
Could even be just a simple conflict in the system somewhere.
Do a check on system devices to see if any conflicts present.
Hope this helps.(im no puter geek, but im gettin there!!!!)

[ultimapaul]

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago, resulted in a new £1k PC sitting on my desk. My mouse was also pi$$ing me about terribly.

Does anyone know of any virus' doing the rounds at the moment, I know of a couple of people with similar problems?

[gopher]

It could be anything of these things mentioned - it would be useful to know if it stalls when first connecting or after a certain amount of time or randomly, what operating system he's using as well.

For a virus check you could do worse than AVG from www.grisoft.com (have nothing to do with them) they offer a free (for personal use) virus checker that is updated regularily, will check incomming and outgoing emails as well, and has yet to let me down :crossesfingers:

Then try some spyware program - there's plenty around do a search on google, can't recommend any as I've not had a problem with this sort of thing.

All the best

Paul

>> Edited by gopher on Sunday 29th December 16:19

[loserkid]

Theres a preloader related to Quicktime which causes this. I think its called QTTask or something.

If you do a CTRL-ALT-DEL and tell me what is running I should be able to work it out for you.

[douglasr]

Get him to clean out his internet cache. Then download ad-aware from www.cnet.com and check for any spyware. Get him to download the latest virus updates from his software provider and check for viruses.

select start, settings, control panel. Double click on system and select the device manager tab. Any problems will be highlighted with a yellow !. Problem devices can be deleted (be carefull though). The plug and play of the OS should reinstall them when the PC is restarted.

[pbrettle]

One other comment to make is to check on the driver versions of the connection method they are using to the internet - is it a modem, ADSL or network card? Either way, go to the manufacturer site and download the latest drivers and install them. Some software modems have a nasty habit of doing this type of thing (though normally found in laptops) which can give the impression of stalling....

The other thing is to check with the telephone supplier (assuming dialup) and get them to check the line for quality (make up a cock-and-bull story about line crackling etc). They will give you a basic answer which may also help explain the loss of data transmission or a period of time...

And finally, if it is dial-up on the phone then check for call waiting. Potentially this could be the interruption beeps that are preventing the data transfer while another call tries to connect. To get around this simply disable call waiting...

Cheers,

Paul