Lynn’s Computer Issue
Dear [Lynn],
Pittsburgh was great. Saw lots of old friends at my high school, and folks I used to work with while employed as an electronics technician 20 years ago at the university of Pitt. I toured my old stomping grounds and visited several of my previous residences. Most are still there and relatively intact, although urban decay has not spared Pittsburgh. However, they are rebuilding all over the place to combat it, and the place looks pretty modern these days over all. The visit was quite the “blast from the past.”
Now to your [hanging web browser] problem: The behavior can be caused by many things, from faulty software on your PC to problems with dropped packets between your PC and your ISP, or your ISP and the rest of the Internet. I would try the following to get rid of this: 1. I know you don’t like using MS Internet Explorer. However, to rule out the installation of the Netscape browser, I’d suggest trying to access the same sites with IE and see if the hanging be re created there. If IE works fine, then you need to download the latest version of Netscape and install it. The version on you PC currently may either be corrupt, or have bugs that have been fixed in later versions. 2. If both Netscape and IE exhibit the problem, then make sure you have the latest versions of your modem drivers installed, and go to the Microsoft web site and download the latest service pack for Windows 98 and apply this to your PC. This will likely resolve many driver bugs and correct any files on your PC that may have somehow become corrupt.
3. When did this faulty behavior start? Was it right after you installed something new? Have you changed any of the network settings? Particularly, the TCP/IP settings must agree exactly with what your ISP recommends. If you’re not sure, check with them. 4. You might mention this problem to your ISP techies, and see if they’ve heard of something similar. They may have a solution already figured out. 5. If after you execute the steps above, you still have the problem, then you might contact some of the web site administrators whose sites are giving you this problem. They may be able to monitor their systems while you visit the sites, and perhaps see something in their logs that might indicate the source of the trouble.
Good luck.
Tom