Any computer teckies out there

what OS ?

Cheese

Sorry but I do not know what OS is.

Regards

Mick

OS = Operating system. e.g. Windows 95, 98, 98SE, 2000, NT, XP, Linux etc.

Mick,

Almost certainly caused by a bug in ZoneAlarm firewall -- so if you are using that try switching it off to see if it the problem goes away. If it does download and then uninstall and re-install the latest version.

Matthew

Thanks for the prompt replies on a Sunday morning.

The system is Windows 98 and I use Norton not Zone alarm.

Regards

Mick

Assuming this PC isn't networked, I'm not sure why a firewall problem should cause difficulties accessing files on your C: drive. To me it sounds more like a file corruption or even a disc controller problem. Have you run a full disc surface scan recently? or a defrag?

David

There was a known issue in ZoneAlarm which gave exactly this problem.

It was caused becuase ZoneAlarm thinks that you are acessing the Internet when Windows Explorer does certain innocuous operations like traversing shortcuts, opening files via association, etc.

Matthew

I conducted a disc scan and tried to do a "thorough" but gave up after 14 hours. I then successfully did a standard scan and defragged afterwards.

Regards

Mick

Mick
I have always got good help from Tech Support Guy(TSG) http://forums.techguy.org/ free and usually quick. Just go the forum for your O.S.
Regards

Howard

Sods law they are down for maintence.

I'm with David, based on limited evidence, it sounds like the symptoms one gets when a hard drive is on the verge of giving up.

Mick,

Click 'Start', point to 'Settings', click 'Control Panel', and then double-click 'System'.

Double-click the 'Disk drvies' branch on the Device Manager tab.

Make a note of what that entry says and post it here, we can then direct you to the hard drive manufacturer's utility to test the drive.

Andy.

Andy

I did as you suggested. It took about 2 minutes for the control panel to be displayed after clicking on settings and once I got into disc drives it said "this device is in order".

Regards

Mick

What available space is left on your drive?

I am using 26% of avaialable disc space. I have drgragged the system and did a standard scandisc.

Regards

Mick

does this only happen when you try to access saved spreadsheets -- i am assuming none of the spreadsheets are already open.

do you get the same problem when you try to access saved word documents, for example?

also try the following: when the system is in this limboland, click right in the task bar (bottom of the desktop) and select Task Manager (this may take a while if your system is suffering, but be patient).

click on the cpu header to sort the entries in descending order of cpu consumption.

tell us the top 5 tasks.

do the same for memory usage.

enjoy

ken

Spyware is another possibility, but I lean towards HDD problems (including data corruption due to s/w), too, in the absence of other info, base on this assumption: a W98 PC is likely to be 4-5 years old, towards the end of life for an IDE hard drive.

Mick,

Copy any data you care about to other media (zip, CD, floppy if you have to). Then get a new PC - it will be cheaper than screwing around with this one, sicne you can't do it yourself.

Regards.

Phil

Mick,
It clearly can't be Zone Alarm if you don't have it but I am equally unconvinced by the HDD suggestions. Here are some other things you might want to investigate?

1) Is it only certain file types? If so then tell us what or try out a few others and find out.

2) Clear out as many temp/tmp files as you can.

3) Have you recently installed RealPlayer or similar? Sometimes faulty downloads of these can cause exactly these symptoms.

4) Where do you save most documents? Is it in your C:\ or is it in another folder like C:\My Documents\Mick Parry etc? Saving too many files in your root folder can cause swap file problems and provoke exactly the symptoms you describe. Also, scandisk and defrag would then run as slowly as you describe.

Don't give up just yet as I have a few other thoughts too.

Also, in case of potential HDD failure make sure you have backed up all required documents; software patches etc. AND don't just back up. Make sure you can actually access them if needed - a common failure of people backing up.

Happy hunting.

Mike H.

When was the last time you re-booted your machine?.

My home PC sometimes becomes extremely slow (5+ minutes) at opening Excel or Word either directly or via selecting one of their files. Re-booting has so far always fixed this but the machine is in dire need of a rebuild which probably means I will just get a new one.

Steve

To answer your questions

1) Is it only certain file types? If so then tell us what or try out a few others and find out.

It seems to be anything I have downloaded.

2) Clear out as many temp/tmp files as you can.

I do this regularly

3) Have you recently installed RealPlayer or similar? Sometimes faulty downloads of these can cause exactly these symptoms.

I installed RealPlayer a long tima ago, before all this started.

4) Where do you save most documents? Is it in your C:\ or is it in another folder like C:\My Documents\Mick Parry etc? Saving too many files in your root folder can cause swap file problems and provoke exactly the symptoms you describe. Also, scandisk and defrag would then run as slowly as you describe.

I have had a good clearout and deleted loads of stuff but it still persists.

Regards

Mick

Chaps

I gave the disc a thorough scan overnight and it said that all errors had been corrected. I then defragged it which took about 45 minutes.

However the problem still persists.

Do you think the time as come for me to get it looked at professionally.

Regards

Mick

If you could carry it on your bike you could cruise up the A421 for 45 minutes or so and I would be able to sort it out for you.

Paul

Mick,
You may well be better off to get someone to look at it. Its pretty difficult to diagnose some system problems without being able to sit in front of it and see whats happening. If you can't take up Pauls kind offer you may well find in the Swindleford area, there's several PC Support people who do home visits advertisng in your local free paper. If possible, try to get one who'll work on a 'no fix no fee basis' or else a fixed up front cost. Good Luck!

David

PS: something else just occured to me. Are the troublesome files particularly large ones and how much RAM memory do you have in the PC?

Mick,

"It seems to be anything I have downloaded"

What sort of files? Any and all files regardless of source or type?

Do you get this problem if you open the file from "File Open" within the application or just from opening via a click?

You mentioned Excel documents is it just these and other Office documents or all types of files?

Does it happen if you create your own files locally or does it have to be downloaded files?

FWIW Given that this *exact* same problem with Windows Explorer has regularly occured with ZoneAlarm I'd try turning off your firewall anyway just in case. I'd also try disabling your Anti-Virus software especially if this problem is strongly associated with Excel and Word files.

Rather than pay someone to come and fix it, I would first consider doing a full clean re-install of your PC from your latest set of backups. In my experience that's got an 90% chance of fixing it and it will likely improve your performance and reliability anyway.

Matthew

Download and run both these anti-spyware programs:

Spybot
Lavasoft Ad-aware

Both are trusted, and recommended.

Are you saying I should ininstall every programme and then install them.

Martin

I have ad aware and use it daily.

I have uninstalled Real player and Windows Media player and the problem is still there.

Regards

Mick

Mick,

"Are you saying I should ininstall every programme and then install them"

Not quite. I was saying that if you re-install Windows and then all your programs and data then your problem might well go away and that this would be preferable to paying some moonlighting PC support guy £20-£30 an hour to aimlessly fiddle with your computer.

I think it is very important -- much more important than virus checkers, firewalls, defragging, running scandisk, etc. -- to be ale to do this. For two main reasons:

Firstly Windows "degrades" over time. After several years running Windows and installing/un-installing all sorts of software, fixing verious problems, fiddling with this and that, etc. your computer will be a real mess. Computer systems and applications in general and Windows systems in particular often benefit from a "following wind" (as it were) and left alone for any period your computer will be significantly slower and more unreliable than it could be. It's not inconcievable that the problems you are experiencing are essentially caused by the Windows equivalent of "old age".

Secondly if your hard disk does fail and you lose all your data then the chances are you will not be able to rebuild your computer and get everything working again unless you've already sorted everything out and have all the CDs, backups, registration keys, installation files, etc. that you need and know what you are doing. This (and your backup procedures) is something you should normally sort out when you buy your computer and have everything to hand but sadly nobody ever does as they are too busy obsessing about avoiding viruses and ending up with Russian schoolboys buying online porn using your credit card.

Having said all that, if you've never done this sort of thing before and have a fairly old computer and then you probably don't want to attempt such a thing without expert help. This is, therefore, the perfect time to invite an IT knowledgable friend over to sample some of your malts and then casually mention you are having a spot of bother with the old computer.

BTW I did ask you some questions about the symptoms you are having. If you want me (or anyone else) to offer much more help you might want to answer them.

Matthew

PS Phil suggested buying a new PC which, if your PC is as old as it seems, is not such a bad idea. Because of ever improving technology, intense competition and so on PC prices have fallen in real terms dramatically in recent years and you can get a very capable computer with up-to-date softare and technology for relatively little money. The new PC I am buying at the moment is twice as powerful as my last one from 3 years ago and costs 20% less.