Bizarre PC Problems

[Onslo]

The Hijack This log would be handy Katie, Have you protected your dcom port?

'Slo

Edit, the server time is screwed at the moment, hence me posting my answer before Katie asked the question!

[katie]

Apologies for such a long post but this situation is now extremely frustrating and I think I can only get help on it if I explain exactly the situation.

Have been experiencing some problems over the last couple of weeks and am now completely stumped.

PC is just over a year old, HP Pavilion 433uk running XP Professional with SP1, Internet Explorer 6, 2Ghz Intel processor, 768MB RAM, 2 x 60GB disks (XP on C drive), NIS/NAV 2003, Realtek network card.

Hardwire networked via a Belkin router modem gateway that has a wireless point (there is another desktop also hardwired in, and two laptops that connect wirelessly. Not all PCs are always on at the same time). ISP is Wanadoo Broadband.

Additionally have an HP PSC 2510 allinone printer/scanner/copier/fax which has networking capability so can print "wirelessly" from the PC through the router - put it this way, installing the software for the printer (drivers etc) detects the printer automatically and the PC isn't directly connected to the printer.

Fully up to date with Windows Update and all virus definitions. Regularly run Ad-Aware, SpySweeper and SpyBot. Very rarely ever visit more than 5-6 websites (DS, BBC, MSN etc).

Startup includes WeatherWatcher and SpySweeper, other PCs in the house also have these in startup but are not experiencing my problems (to be fair, although all the PCs have the same OS etc, they have different hardware configs so can't do a fair comparison).

Nothing else unusual installed apart from a few games: MS Train Simulator with 2 addon packs, Rally Trophy, Sheep.

The problem:

About a week after reformatting (complete reinstall of XP) I experience the following:

1. The network icon takes at least 3 minutes to display in the system tray after startup, although I can access the internet and mailwasher with no problems before it displays. Use a LAN to access the internet (having run Network Setup Wizard when the PC was setup so I can share documents with other PCs so in a workgroup, not domain) but occasionally an Internet Gateway connection shows up in the Network Connections but alwasy disconnected. After a couple of minutes it seems to disappear from the list of network connections. Internet Connection Firewall is NOT activated on the LAN as the router has it's own firewall and am using NIS 2003. Internet Connection Sharing is not set on as far as I can tell, and anyway have no need for it with a router.

2. Clicking on My Computer (to show drives), whether after startup or later in the day, takes a good 3 minutes to display the drives (you see the magnifying glass sweeping over the window while it "searches". Then all drives are accessible.

3. Can only access websites that are either in my Favourites or if I type http:// at the beginning, eg typing www.amazon.co.uk appears to do nothing but the website will eventually display after a few minutes. If I type http://www.amazon.co.uk it goes there immediately. If I want to go to a website I haven't been to before I have to type www.whatever.com in the google toolbar and it will take me there.
So, what I've done to try and cure these problems.

Ran AdAware, SpySweeper, Sypbot - nothing major found, just the usual tracking cookies.

No viruses at all on the PC.

Downloaded and ran HiJackThis yesterday but it didn't show anything obviously dodgy (unfortunately the log file for this is at home and I'm at work now!).

Detailed googling suggested I check some registry entries to ensure http:// is the default in HKLocalMachine\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Run\URL (can't remember path exactly) but made no difference.

Have done a repair of IE6 as best I could and used another program last night that would reinstall all the correct default registry entries, that didn't help either.

This problem happend a couple of weeks ago, I found it so frustrating that I did a complete reformat/reinstall of XP but a week since I did that the problem has occurred again. I can't live with having to reformat every week or so if this keeps happening. Like I said, the other three PCs do not experience this problem but they have different processors/memory etc.

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Katie.

[katie]

Will post it later. Am now convinced though that the problems are due probably to the HP PSC 2510 printer. Have been reading through HP forums and lots of people are experiencing all sorts of problems, some of which match or are similar to some of mine. Fault might be with the HP software for the scanner part of the printer.

Cheers,
Katie.

[katie]

(copy of a post I made on another forum - seek all avenues for help!!!)

Well how bizarre.

Just got home, switched on PC, at welcome screen mouse was frozen (this happens after a powercut which happend this morning) so unplugged mouse from USB port, plugged in again and was working again. PC started up windows, all usual suspects started immediately, including the display of the LAN connection icon in the sys tray. Went straight to My Computer, all drives displayed instantly. Went to IE, typed in a few random web address without the http:// prefix and was directed to them instantly. Check auto-complete web addresses and it's already checked so no need to change that (this was suggested on another forum).

Only difference is that I unplugged my webcam at the same time as I unplugged/replugged in my mouse so I have now no webcam (which I never use anyway - Logitech Quickcam Express) as another forum suggested Windows Imaging Application (WIA) can sometimes not start properly with some webcams.

So, bizarre, so far so good, will do a few reboots tonight, including leaving the PC switched off for a while between reboots and see how things progress. It might just be a temporary blip and will all go funny later or tomorrow, but will see.

Still have a few more things to test and play around with but thanks for the help and suggestions so far, and any others that people may think of.

Cheers,
Katie.

[peter984]

The PSC 2510 did the exactly the same thing to my computer. After installing the drivers for wireless networking all sorts of problems occured. Openning up "My Computer" was very slow as was openning the folder window in explorer and starting Internet Explorer. As I work round I used Mozilla Firefox browser to seek help on the internet finding this newsgroup along the way.
I found no specific help on the issue and HP have yet to get back to me but I think I have managed to identify where I went wrong. When I first installed the PSC 2510 software it for wireless networking it didn't install properly so I tried installing for a wired network and using the setup button on the printer to switch to wireless. This seemed to work until the above problems developed.
My solution was to download the latest software (a whopping 450+MB but I'm on broadband so what the hell) and then do a full uninstall using the uninstall progamme in the software. (Instruction on how to do this can be found on HP's PSC 2510 support site)
I then loaded the softwhere I had downloaded and it all ran smoothly.
No more "My Computer" problems.
However one glitch has occured since. When trying to scan by using the printer's scan button the printer said it wasn't connected but the scan icon in HP Director worked fine. Also the card reader (Z drive) was disconnected according to "My Computer".
Whilst waiting and waiting for the software to download I'd browsed HP's Support Site and discovered tucked away in an obscure document that the 2510 does't like muliple users on the computer connecting to it. In particular it doesn't like fast switching between users. So I went into the control panel and disabled fast switching between users. I was tempted to delete the ASP.NET user that NET Framework created but decided not to as according to microsoft this isn't recommended. I then logged off (not shutdown) and logged in again and hey presto the scanbutton worked and the z drive was available.

I hope this information is useful to those of you who have encountered similar problems

Peter

[peter984]

I spoke to soon.

The symptoms have returned.
They only occur if the computer is turned on before the printer. They disappear if the printer is turned on before the computer. If the printer is turned on after the computer most of the symptoms disappear if I run HP Director.

Does anyone have any bright ideas?

Peter

[ormus55]

disable/unplug the printer and the drivers, (better in safe mode.)
then reboot and see what happens. if all ok, then prob is fairly obvious. contact hp and see what they say? new drivers perhaps?