Hey,
At work (I'm a teacher) I've currently got use of 2 different laptops. 1 is a pretty new shiny one on XP and the other is an old one with a tiny (5 or 6 GB) hd on Win 2000.
Now the older one can connect to the internet fine and loads pages quickly as the school has a decent internet connection, but the newer one is a different matter.
It takes ages to load anything on the internet. I've no idea what is wrong with it. The strange thing is I think it loads the pages into memory quite quickly and the time taken is doing something else in the background as a couple of times after I entered a URL, after a few seconds or so, I unplugged the ethernet cable giving the connection. I would have expected the "disconnected" notice to appear and the page to stop loading but it doesn't. It just continues to say "connecting to http://... then after the length of time it usually take it displays the website I was going to then a short second later displays the unable to cnnect page.
What's going on? I want to use the shiny new laptop, for obvious reasons, but the length of time it takes to load any websites is driving me mad!
It is an evesham laptop and has McAfee security on it. It's got a few other things installed on it, but nothing much to be honest. So if anyone has a clue as to why it is doing this, please let me know!
Internet connnection on a laptop problem...
-
degeneration
- Royal Tramp
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bradavon
- Bruce Lee's Fist
- Posts: 24430
- Joined: 27 Oct 2004, 19:30
I presume you're running IE6 right? I'd upgrade it to IE7.
As to the actual problem, firstly am I right in saying it's physically the same network cable? Which goes into the exact same port at the wall? I'll assume that's the case so is likely to be the laptop.
* You say it's pretty new, how new? I'm wondering if it has lots of crap on it.
* Did anyone else own it before?
* Have you checked Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs for any crud you can uninstall?
* Is McAfee Security the latest version?
* Are it's virus definitions up to date?
* Is it just the AntiVirus tool or Antispyware too? If not you could have spyware on your PC.
* Right click on the Task Bar (usually blue across the bottom on XP) and choose Task Manager, on the "Processes" tab can you see anything obvious that shouldn't be there?
* Have you tried closing McAfee Security?
* Is XP's Firewall enabled? Assuming McAfee doesn't have one and even more importantly the Firewall solution isn't being dealt with at the server end. As you're using it at work it should be and therefore you don't want to enable a software firewall, it will be overkill and just cause problems.
* Have you cleared IE's Cache (Temporary Internet files), Cookies and History? It is something all call centres regularly tell you to do when it's not related at all but it could be here.
* On the XP Laptop are you actually connecting to the right Internet connection? Go to Tools, Options from IE then "Internet Options" (also in Control Panel) and under the connection tab. What is chosen as the default? It sounds like your Internet connection is LAN/Ethernet based so usually you shouldn't have any default nor any Internet connections in there period.
* On this tab try setting it to "Never dial a connection". It's possible IE is trying to use the wrong Internet connection.
* Your network card's network connection may also be setup wrong. Usually you want this set to "Assign an IP address automatically" which means the server will give the laptop an IP address. Some companies do use static IP addresses though. Your Support Desk will be able to tell you. Better yet see what the 2000 laptop is set to and set it the same, XP and 2000 are very similar (XP is really 2000 Plus) so they will be identical.
* Go to Start, Settings, Network or "Connection To" option (Try Connection To first), Right click on the "Local Area Connection" connection (it should be the default, is it?) and then right click on it and choose "Properties" from there the really important one is TCP/IP. Go into it's properties and see if any static IP address is assigned on the 2000 PC. Set the XP PC the same. Like I said it's normally dynamic (i.e - Automatic) but may not be in your case. I'm no longer using XP so I'm doing this from memory.
* Can you connect to any network servers/drives? If not the web is never going to work (unless of course it's been configured to allow one but not the other).
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Otherwise you'll need to go to your companies Service Desk.
I hope that helps.
As to the actual problem, firstly am I right in saying it's physically the same network cable? Which goes into the exact same port at the wall? I'll assume that's the case so is likely to be the laptop.
* You say it's pretty new, how new? I'm wondering if it has lots of crap on it.
* Did anyone else own it before?
* Have you checked Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs for any crud you can uninstall?
* Is McAfee Security the latest version?
* Are it's virus definitions up to date?
* Is it just the AntiVirus tool or Antispyware too? If not you could have spyware on your PC.
* Right click on the Task Bar (usually blue across the bottom on XP) and choose Task Manager, on the "Processes" tab can you see anything obvious that shouldn't be there?
* Have you tried closing McAfee Security?
* Is XP's Firewall enabled? Assuming McAfee doesn't have one and even more importantly the Firewall solution isn't being dealt with at the server end. As you're using it at work it should be and therefore you don't want to enable a software firewall, it will be overkill and just cause problems.
* Have you cleared IE's Cache (Temporary Internet files), Cookies and History? It is something all call centres regularly tell you to do when it's not related at all but it could be here.
* On the XP Laptop are you actually connecting to the right Internet connection? Go to Tools, Options from IE then "Internet Options" (also in Control Panel) and under the connection tab. What is chosen as the default? It sounds like your Internet connection is LAN/Ethernet based so usually you shouldn't have any default nor any Internet connections in there period.
* On this tab try setting it to "Never dial a connection". It's possible IE is trying to use the wrong Internet connection.
* Your network card's network connection may also be setup wrong. Usually you want this set to "Assign an IP address automatically" which means the server will give the laptop an IP address. Some companies do use static IP addresses though. Your Support Desk will be able to tell you. Better yet see what the 2000 laptop is set to and set it the same, XP and 2000 are very similar (XP is really 2000 Plus) so they will be identical.
* Go to Start, Settings, Network or "Connection To" option (Try Connection To first), Right click on the "Local Area Connection" connection (it should be the default, is it?) and then right click on it and choose "Properties" from there the really important one is TCP/IP. Go into it's properties and see if any static IP address is assigned on the 2000 PC. Set the XP PC the same. Like I said it's normally dynamic (i.e - Automatic) but may not be in your case. I'm no longer using XP so I'm doing this from memory.
* Can you connect to any network servers/drives? If not the web is never going to work (unless of course it's been configured to allow one but not the other).
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Otherwise you'll need to go to your companies Service Desk.
I hope that helps.
That's normal, especially in IE. Which I presume you use? IE can somestimes take forever to give up.I unplugged the ethernet cable giving the connection. I would have expected the "disconnected" notice to appear and the page to stop loading but it doesn't. It just continues to say "connecting to http://...
-
degeneration
- Royal Tramp
- Posts: 1474
- Joined: 30 Oct 2004, 08:49
- Location: Wales (but I'm Scottish!!)
Hey, sorry for the no reply here. I meant to once I had a go at fiddling with it based on your suggestions, but completely forgot. Hold my hands up here and say my bad. Had a play and couldn't get anything changed.
There's a lot of stuff I'm not able to do on the laptop as it is a school one, and also due to internal school politics, i've to keep the fact that I've got 2 laptops at the mo' quiet, so can't even go to tech support!!
The only one I'm left to try is the Task Manager one, which I'll do next week. Cheers for all the suggestions and your reply!
Again, sorry for not chipping in with a response!
There's a lot of stuff I'm not able to do on the laptop as it is a school one, and also due to internal school politics, i've to keep the fact that I've got 2 laptops at the mo' quiet, so can't even go to tech support!!
The only one I'm left to try is the Task Manager one, which I'll do next week. Cheers for all the suggestions and your reply!
Again, sorry for not chipping in with a response!
-
bradavon
- Bruce Lee's Fist
- Posts: 24430
- Joined: 27 Oct 2004, 19:30