VintagePunk
Blue Crack Distributor
A couple of months ago, I picked up a low end laptop, an Acer with a 1.86 GHz processor and 1 gig RAM, running Vista Home Basic. Got it on sale really cheap, and figured that even if it lasts me a year or so, I'll be happy. For the most part, it's exceeded my expectations regarding speed and such.
For about a month now, I've had a series of weird things happening. I'm no computer expert by any means, but I I know my way around the basic stuff and can usually do okay troubleshooting by googling problems. This, I don't even know where to begin to look.
The first thing that started happening is, a few days after a Windows update, my touchpad started freezing. The only thing I could do is Ctr-Alt-Del, and then restart the computer by tabbing. Upon restart, it would work fine. (not sure if this is related at all, but the very first time this happened, I attempted to go back to the previous restore, before the windows update, and I couldn't, I got an error.) This happened maybe every 5 - 7 days. Then, a new wrinkle was added to the mix: the computer would restart fine, but when I reopened Firefox and clicked on Restore Session, the tabs that I had opened previously would take forever to reload, maybe 20 or 30 minutes to reload 5 web pages. During this time, MSN worked fine, but any new webpages I opened would also take forever. Also, while this was happening, everything showed that my wireless internet was connected fine. I quickly learned that in order to get the internet to open web pages in a normal manner, the only thing I could do is wait it out, wait for all the pages that were up to reload. Once this was done, I had to reboot the computer again via the start menu, and then the webpages would load at a normal, fast pace.
Then, a couple of weeks later, it stopped being my touchpad that froze, and instead it was always Firefox that froze first, and then the rest of the applications. When this happened, I normally couldn't shut down the computer through the start menu, I'd have to do a hard boot. Once the computer restarted, I'd have the same problems with the internet crawling till the pages that were up loaded, and I rebooted again via the start menu.
The last time that Firefox froze, I had to do a hard boot, but fortunately that time, the internet worked fine right off the bat, everything loaded quickly the first time. That was several days ago. Just now, the touchpad froze again, requiring me to Ctr-Alt-Del and reboot, but again, the internet loaded fine the first time.
What the hell is going on? Are all of these problems related? Is it software or hardware-related? I have no idea. I've tried to google, but any search terms I can think of using are very vague (eg: slow internet on reboot) and nothing that comes up seems to fit the problems I'm having.
For about a month now, I've had a series of weird things happening. I'm no computer expert by any means, but I I know my way around the basic stuff and can usually do okay troubleshooting by googling problems. This, I don't even know where to begin to look.
The first thing that started happening is, a few days after a Windows update, my touchpad started freezing. The only thing I could do is Ctr-Alt-Del, and then restart the computer by tabbing. Upon restart, it would work fine. (not sure if this is related at all, but the very first time this happened, I attempted to go back to the previous restore, before the windows update, and I couldn't, I got an error.) This happened maybe every 5 - 7 days. Then, a new wrinkle was added to the mix: the computer would restart fine, but when I reopened Firefox and clicked on Restore Session, the tabs that I had opened previously would take forever to reload, maybe 20 or 30 minutes to reload 5 web pages. During this time, MSN worked fine, but any new webpages I opened would also take forever. Also, while this was happening, everything showed that my wireless internet was connected fine. I quickly learned that in order to get the internet to open web pages in a normal manner, the only thing I could do is wait it out, wait for all the pages that were up to reload. Once this was done, I had to reboot the computer again via the start menu, and then the webpages would load at a normal, fast pace.
Then, a couple of weeks later, it stopped being my touchpad that froze, and instead it was always Firefox that froze first, and then the rest of the applications. When this happened, I normally couldn't shut down the computer through the start menu, I'd have to do a hard boot. Once the computer restarted, I'd have the same problems with the internet crawling till the pages that were up loaded, and I rebooted again via the start menu.
The last time that Firefox froze, I had to do a hard boot, but fortunately that time, the internet worked fine right off the bat, everything loaded quickly the first time. That was several days ago. Just now, the touchpad froze again, requiring me to Ctr-Alt-Del and reboot, but again, the internet loaded fine the first time.
What the hell is going on? Are all of these problems related? Is it software or hardware-related? I have no idea. I've tried to google, but any search terms I can think of using are very vague (eg: slow internet on reboot) and nothing that comes up seems to fit the problems I'm having.
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