[infomagick]

I am using Vista Home Premium on a HP9700t (Intel 8100t, 3 Gigs Ram). After working for a few hours sometimes less, when memory usage goes to about 54%, Firefox 2.x will stops connecting to webpages. Closing it and reopening again gets a connection for a short time (sometimes) and then, after a while, it completely refuses to connect unless I reboot. Internet Explorer will not connect either under these circumstances. Both browsers just spin waiting in vain for the connection. Also, when I reach this point, Vista will not Restart or Shutdown normally. I have to press and hold the start button. I did a memory check with the included memory diagnostic software and it shows no problem. When it's running well, the machine really shines. Has anyone experienced anything similar to this or have an idea as to what is going on. Basically, all I am doing is visiting news sites (not even using video).

Thanks for any help.

[jcgriff2]

How many IE or firefox screens/tabs do you have open at once?

Have you tried upgrading to Firefox v3?
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

[infomagick]

I do need to upgrade to Firefox V3 but was giving it a bit more time. I have heard that the memory requirements are a lot less. I am not opening many tabs at all, usually one or two at a time. I just don't understand the freezing. It's getting to the point that every time I click on a link I'm afraid it's going to hang. The machine is starting to feel almost unusable.

[DuaneH]

Are you behind a router or just using a modem? It sounds like a modem problem or router problem and you lose connectivity.

[infomagick]

Hey Duane, I'm just using a dsl router/modem at my home. It works perfectly on my desktop machine but not on this laptop. I get the same problem at two different Starbucks to which I go often. I have recently tried some commands to clear dns settings and reset winsock but I haven't had enough time to see if it is working. I will say that when it works this computer really rocks. I hope I can get past this internet disconnection problem though as it is really an irritant. Every time I click on a link I'm afraid I'm going to have to reboot. :-(

[neonix]

Alright, I have had this problem for about a week now. After a few hours (maybe more or less), I cannot reach anything through HTTP.
I can, however, PING any website or IP and get a response. Any IRC servers that I was connected to before the problem occurs, stay connected and I continue to send/receive messages. But I connecting to a new server is a no-go.

I'm still using FF2 because FF3 is still not compatible with a lot of plugins I like to use. I doubt it's Firefox, the number of tabs, or a memory issue, as this problem affects IE and Opera as well.
I am behind a router and a modem, but I am 100% the router is not at fault. All other machines can connect and access the internet fine through the router.

The problem is temporarily fixed after a reboot. But if there's anything I hate to do, it's rebooting my computer.

----
Anyway, it would seem this is a Winsock and/or TCP/IP related issue. (If I remember correctly, I ran into the same issue in Win2k once) So I recently followed these two quick guides:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/0...og-corruption/
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/0...a-2003-and-xp/

Restarted, but I still cannot shut down without having to hold the power button. Odd thing is that I could shut down fine the first few times the connection error occurred.

Well, my LAN wasn't connecting after the reboot. I reinstalled the drivers, and rebooted again. Still had ot hold the power button to get it to shut off.

I could connect through my wireless card (This is a desktop, not a notebook), but I got a "Server not found" error MUCH more frequently than before. Reloading the page would work, but it was a problem, and I prefer not use LAN.

Finally, I had to mess around with Windows' user-UNfriendly and unorganized network settings dialogs and the command prompt to finally get it to reset the LAN connection and connect to the internet.

Well, I'll know in a day or so if this fix worked or not. I hope it works for others, and I wish you all luck (and patience, much patience)!

[infomagick]

Neonix, do you have an HP by any chance? My attempts to reset things did not work. I am now considering installing FF3. Funny thing, the symptoms you describe are *exactly* what I am experiencing on my HP Pavilion 9700t, even to the point that I also have to restart by holding down the power button. Please keep me posted.

[neonix]

No, I have a self-built machine, so I'm almost positive this is a a software problem.

Google comes up with many threads about the same thing in Vista, and in one thread, some people had the same problem on XP, and someone had posted Winsockfixxp.exe which I believe does the same thing as that first link I posted, but not through command prompt and so it won't work on Vista.

Maybe you could try a system restore if you have a restore point far back enough.

[infomagick]

Unfortunately, I have had this problem from day one on my machine. Here is another long thread which you may have already seen with comments on the same subject. I am in the process of trying one or two more things and then contacting HP. Thanks for your comments, let's keep each other posted.

[infomagick]

An incomplete fix that I have not tested but that may work and that was mentioned as a partial solution in the thread I mentioned in my previous post is to run the browser as administratior. The poster said this had worked for him. I am not sure of what the security risks of doing this might be.

[neonix]

Well, my system has been up for 34 hours now and the problem has not occurred yet. I think it's solved.

Please note, after I did those fixes, I reinstalled the LAN drivers that came with my motherboard, rebooted, and messed around with my network settings a lot. Things like ipconfig /release, ipconfig /flushdns, disable LAN connection, disable wireless connection, "diagnose and repair" and select re-renable LAN, ipconfig /renew, and I had to reset the IP reservation on my router because the whole processed changed my LAN's MAC address.

And if you have any static IP settings on windows itself, remove them.

[infomagick]

Thanks for the input. I have just updated Firefox from 2.x to 3 but I really doubt that this will help. I have noticed that Firefox sometimes freezes when it stops connecting and I am unable to delete it from running processes using the task manager, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping for a miracle. I went through the fixes of resetting the stack, winsock, flushing the DNS, diagnose and repair (no problems found is the usual response). I'm not really sure about disabling the LAN connection and wireless connection. I am on a laptop and it has the same problem in Starbucks. Do you have one thing that you feel may have done the trick for you? Congrats on the 34 hours, I would consider that a fix. I am totally frustrated with this problem.

[neonix]

Diagnose and repair is a useless noob function. It never does solve anything. I didn't mean to use it looking for a fix, it's just the fastest way to re-enable the LAN after disabling it. Cycling the LAN like that can often jumpstart the connection.

I don't feel any one measure taken was the golden ticket. The process as a whole was definitely needed. I wish I could have recorded the whole thing so people could follow it. Through all the frustration and different things, I can't even remember the order of everything.

But I am sure it's a problem within windows. I just mentioned that one bit about the router in case anyone else uses their router to reserve a static IP for their computer.

[infomagick]

Ok, thanks for your input and help neonix. I'm still struggling but hope to nail it soon with a little help from above.

[infomagick]

FF3 seems to take up much less memory than FF2 (as advertised). I seemed to have partially resolved the issue by removing Firefox from the firewall program list (Zone Alarm), restarting Firefox, and re-allowing it to access the net. The details of that operation are here: link.