internet very slow and freezing up

I'm trying to help a next door lady with her pc. It has win98 with dial up.
Getting on the internet is very slow. After getting on the internet when trying to go to another page it just sits there for a long time showing the hourglass.
her Norton av has expired and last night she said that there was an antivirus
program that popped up called STOP and she let iit run a scan and it said she had several trojans and spyware. When I looked at it today I saw that you have to subscribe to it before it will remove anything.
I tried to get some onfo from TSG on her pc but as far as I could get was your home page.
I was going to run a new av and spybot and adaware but all it does is show the hourglass for hours.
She said that when the STOP av did the scan it took about five hours.
Thanks for the help you have a great site.

 

Get HiJackThis and load it on a floppy or CD. Install it on here computer and run a scan. After you go through the following instructions, copy the saved HJT log to a floppy and take it back to your computer and post it in a reply here.

Follow these steps after you get the HJT file on her computer:

First, create a folder in C:\Program Files and label it HiJackThis. This is where you will download the executable file. This is also the folder where your HJT backups will be stored. Click Here to download the file.

Close all windows, including this and any other browser windows. Launch HJT and click the Scan button. When the scan is finished, the Scan button will have changed to Save Log. Click that and save the log to your HJT folder. DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING YET. Most of the listed items are harmless or even essential. Wait for recommendations from someone trained in HJT log file interpretation.

Now open the saved log file... In the toolbar at the top of the window under Edit, select Select All. Copy (Ctrl+C) the text and paste (Ctrl+V) it into a reply in this thread.

This is a little clumsy and time consuming, but after the scan is posted, we may be able to do enough to get her comp online to finish up.

 

hmmmm.... first off NAV is a real resource-hog that really ain't worth the money they charge, but personal grudges aside...
a few things to try:
1) get a decent spyware killer like Spybot Search & Destroy. you'll probably be surprised at what all is sucking up internet connection speed by reporting personal data.
2) check internet connections. go to Start-> Settings -> Control Panel -> Modems -> Properties -> Connection tab -> Port Settings and make sure that both sliders are set to High. then go to "OK," then "OK" again. go back to "Control Panel" and click on "Internet Settings," then the "Connections" tab. click "settings" then "properties" then "server types." make sure that only "Enable software compression" and "TCP/IP Settings" are checked.. everything else is to be left unchecked (no check mark in the box beside it)

 

this may not be right thing to do---just what to do from my experience--what works

 

First of all let me say thank you for your help. I finally got the ladys pc on the net. Seem that her home page had mysteriously changed. I changed her home page and it started working a lot better. After getting on the net I downloaded and ran spybot and removed a lot of spyware. I'm going back tomorrow to download adaware and an antivirus. I read about changing the home page or the page you are trying to search from to be able to get on the net on this site.
Maybe I can get more fixed tomorrow.
This is a very helpful and knowledgeable site.