IE and OE problem

[cypher000]

Hi Guy's. I hate to burden anyone with my problems, but after some weeks of struggling and sick with the worry of it, I thought I would give it a try. I began having a problem getting on the web with IE, it would struggle for an hour to come up with the Google logo, never mind perform a search. The same with OE. I would be told that I was connected and that messages were being downloaded, but no messages ever appeared. Sometimes this state of affairs would go on for two or even three days.
But then, another day I would switch on and IE would leap in, just like it is supposed to do and I could surf the web all day long. OE would download my e-mails, masses of them, like lightening. Happy days indeed. It never lasted more than one day though before we were back to the slow, slow, slow, ending in nothing.
I run Win XP Pro pre-installed on a Dell Optiplex GX260 with 2 Gig of memory, the max it will take. I have a 20 Gig Hard Drive with an 80 Gig External drive on  USB. When this problem began I contacted Karoo help and they were very helpful,  but nothing they sugested made any difference. I bought another ST510 router from them and replaced both it and all the cables, etc, thinking that this was where the trouble lay. It has made no difference.
This morning I took my computer to a repair technician. He checked it out and could find nothing wrong. He connected to Karoo and a deluge of e-mails came shooting in. He charged me nothing and I took my computer home again. I have sat all day since,trying to get on the Internet, without success, untill a few minutes ago when it, slowly, very very slowly allowed me to log on here and post this question.
I have no idea when I shall get back into the forum, maybe tomorrow, maybe in two or three days, whenever it decides to let me. I am in despair. Is it the wired connection? But if it is, how come I can connect one day but not the next. Surely if the wired connection was duff, I would never get on at all?
If anyone can help me to solve this riddle I would be very gratefull. Thank you for any and all replies. Walt.

[dylan]

Hi Walt, nice to hear from you again. I notice you've been registered on the forum for a couple of years now 

It's pretty hard to diagnose a problem without actually getting 'hands on' with the PC, and it's somewhat disconcerting that the computer technician you took it to couldn't find anything wrong. All the same, perhaps we can figure something out.

We need to figure out what is causing the slowdown, whether it is the PC itself, the router or your actual internet connection.

1. Check the telephone line
First of all (and you might have done this already), you need to contact Karoo when you can't actually connect. Ask them to check the connection on their end, ask them what speed you are getting and if they can see any errors on the line.

2. Check the network connection from router to PC
Assuming that Karoo tell you that everything is OK, next we need to eliminate the other end of the connection. When you are having this problem with accessing the Internet, glance down to the bottom right of your screen and see if the icon below (2 computers with a red cross) is displayed.



If it is, this can indicate a problem with the cable, the router, or sometimes with the ethernet (network) socket on the computer itself.

3. Rule out an operating system or software problem
Finally, lets try and rule out the operating system (I believe you said you're using Windows XP) or the software installed on it. To totally rule out both Windows and any other software, we can try run Ubuntu on your computer in 'live cd' mode. This mode won't make any changes to your actual hard drive, so won't damage your PC in any way. There is more info here about how to get up and running with live CD mode https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

If you don't get the same problems while using Ubuntu in Live CD mode then you'll know that it is either a problem with Windows or the software you are running. We can then investigate further.