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Date:	Sun, 16 Oct 2005 19:26:45 PDT7
From:	Tom Brown <thombrown@san.rr.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: OT: Windows / Dell Laptop Problem

Content Type: text/plain

Colin,
A few questions...
1. What Service Pack level (if any) is installed on the machine?
2. Is there any Anti-virus software on the machine? Is it up to date?
Has a scan been run lately?
3. Have you run any anti-spyware programs on the machine? Free
candidates are M$ Anti-Spyware Beta
(http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx)
or Spybot Search and Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/)
4. How are you accessing the Internet? What program? Internet Exploder?
Have you tried Firefox? Outlook Express? Have you tried Thunderbird?
Can you ping anything external to the machine or your network? What
versions?

Some of the questions & suggestions above imply installation of new or
updated software. Since you say that you can't access the Internet from
this machine, updated software could be downloaded on another machine
and burned to a CD to be installed on the machine in question, or they
could be installed over a lan.

In short, you have given us precious little information to work with.
More info could elicit more specific suggestions and/or solutions.

HTH, Tom

Colin Campbell wrote:
> My daughter has a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with WinXP Home installed on
> it. She hasn't been using the machine, because each time she boots it,
> and tries to access the Internet (using Internet Explorer), the machine
> freezes, and can only be reactivated by pressing the Power button long
> enough to turn the machine off.
>
> Since the machine is pretty high end (as of nearly 4 years ago), and was
> a gift from her parents, I have been encouraging her to bite the bullet
> and get it repaired. So, what did she do? She gave it to her mother,
> who brought it to our house, so I can fool with it. Naturally, half the
> stuff that came with the PC is still at my daughter's house, including
> the Dell recovery CD.
>
> I booted up the machine today, and verified that it worked, and also
> that when her boyfriend tried reinstalling WinXP, that he did not
> reinstall the other software that came with the machine. I have also
> connected the machine to my Adelphia "cable modem", and observed the
> machine freezing. (Previously, they had tried dial up and DSL
> connections.)
>
> After yesterday's SCOUG meeting, I burned an eCS Demo CD.
>
> Figuring "What's the worst that can happen?", I booted the laptop from
> this CD, and it worked just fine, like Sandy's Thinkpad T42 did at the
> meeting. The Flash presentation worked, with sound, SciTech supported
> the video beautifully, and I could connect to the Internet (and the
> machine didn't freeze). The Demo CD has about half convinced me that I
> could have a pleasant experience with a laptop and eCS.
>
> I'm now wondering
> (1) does anyone have an opinion about whether this is a hardware or
> software problem,
> (2) does anyone an idea about how I should go about fixing it if this is
> a software problem (I assume I'd do a full software recovery?), and
> (3) does anyone have a recommendation for where I should take the
> machine in the North Orange County area to get it fixed?
>
> Thanks,
> Colin

--
Tom Brown, Catherder
thombrown at san dot rr dot com
Member SCOUG, V.O.I.C.E. & SDAA

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