Topic: What are your thoughts?

[Fork]

For the past week and a half this PC has been playing up...running slow,disconnecting from the net,keys and mouse not working or very sluggish. My ISP is Orange.

Then last evening out of the blue,BT decided to call and asked me if Im happy with my present ISP!

Do you think that BT could be messing with the line?

[asbean]

coincidence ???

[hellohelenhere]

Coincidence, I'm sure. There's a lot of hard sell going on at the moment, and BT must be losing a lot of custom to phone-over-internet and so forth. I had some hard sell from my bank last time I went in - they kept telling me I had a great loan rating, and did I want to borrow any money? I had to practically fight them off! Lots of it happening, in this climate I'm sure - but I seriously doubt they can sabotage your internet connection.

As for your computer problems, I think you need to do a virus check. (I don't know much about viruses as I'm a Mac user and it doesn't seem to crop up.) Another thing you could do, if your internet connection goes slow, is to clear your cookies, they can really clog things up. They'll be somewhere in your internet settings.

What kind of mouse do you have? If the traditional kind, have you cleaned it? By which I mean, take out the ball and clean the contacts - they get covered in grey gunk and eventually you get a really problematic mouse. Best way to clean them is with a cotton bud and alcohol.

[Fork]

Thanks for that.

I use Windows XP and recently downloaded(or is it uploaded ;D) Service Pack 3.

I just realised my PC started playing up after that.Our other PC upstairs would not connect wirelessly via this one either........so I just deleted Service Pack 3,and you guessed.....everything works fine....for now!

I have AVG antivirus(not the free version) and I scan every coule of days,it only finds cookies that my son doesnt delete from his account.I delete cookies and temporary internet files daily.

[asbean]

Wasn't there something re AVG and SP3 recently? Some sort of conflict?

If you have an optical mouse, check for any dust/dirt round the sensor.  I have an optical mouse, and if a cat hair gets stuck on the sensor it goes beserk.  Also the four "feet" can get clogged up with sweaty dust, needs scraping off, and will move more easily.

Have you tried a disk clean-up and defrag?  Also, are you nearing the capacity of your hard drive?

Definitely do a complete virus scan.

Try ctrl+alt+del and see what programs you have running and how much resources they are using, there may be some rogue progs there.

Is your memory working OK?  Sometimes a memory stick can get dislodged over time (and dust).

[Larkshall]

Boy! am I glad I changed to Ubuntu/Linux OS for online work. No virus problems like you people get, it just works.

[Plot69]

Boy! am I glad I changed to Ubuntu/Linux OS for online work. No virus problems like you people get, it just works.

Me too. Apple Mac rules. Never had any problems and never reinstalled other than an upgrade for 5 years.

[Eristic]

Apple Mac rules. Never had any problems and never reinstalled other than an upgrade for 5 years.

But Apple is now advising all users to install and run at least one virus scanner as their machines are now coming under heavy fire from the scum. Also malware is now being targeted at applications rather than operating systems so no machine is safe.

Incidently, I'm running a box with Windows XP that is permenantly on for the last 8 years with just occasional rebooting, but it is not allowed any email and I still cannot garantee if free of virus. My preference is for Linux but even that is not immune.

[Plot69]

Apple Mac rules. Never had any problems and never reinstalled other than an upgrade for 5 years.

But Apple is now advising all users to install and run at least one virus scanner as their machines are now coming under heavy fire from the scum.

Mine is a G5, not an intel Mac so still not as much of a problem. I have had a few words with Santa but I'll have to wait and see. :)

My preference is for Linux but even that is not immune.

I always used Suse before I got a Mac, loved it. OS X is not that far removed from Nix.