Louise,
>I have a Dell PIII, WinXP.
Keep in mind that the PIII may be just barely able to handle XP. A lot
probably depends on how much ram you have. Since 256 Meg is considered by
some a minimum, Maybe 512 Meg would be a minimum for a P III.
> I had some of my WIN98 programs on it that
> caused problems and I deleted everything to start over.
'Delete', as in uninstall or actually delete. Deleteting program on any
machine is a bad idea. Always uninstall them rather than deleting.
Can I assume that 'start over' means to reinstall your OS?
> When my HD started to fail, I had another one put in the computer.
What were the signs of failure? Software can mimic hardware failure.
> So the new drive is "C" and the spare drive is "F".
Spare as in the old drive?
> Could that be any part of the problem?
Not in and of istelf, using the old drive as a second drive will not cause a
problem if installed properly. The C drive has to be the boot drive of
course. I tend to want my hard drive partitions to fill al the drive letters
from C to whatever is the last letter. Then I set the opticals at the end of
the alphabet, Y and Z. That way the space in between can be used for
external devices like USB drives and flash drives.
> And why, since it WAS working ok.
Does this mean that you did not install your old drive but had a different
'spare'? You said that the old drive seemed to be failing.
> I have searched and read lots of posts and so far I haven't had any
> luck finding my solution.
I'm still not clear what the problem is. Can you describe how the computer
is behaving, form boot until shutdown?
> I have scanned and defragged til I am blue in the face.
If you have an incorrect installation or defective hardware scanning and
defragging won't fix that. And in fact with XP defragging makes only minimum
improvement with XP because the NTFS file system does not frragment as much
and fragmentation has less impact on performance, at least this is
conventional wisdom.
>Ran Complete Clean Trial version,AVG, AdAware and Spywareblaster.....
While viruses, spyware and such still exist, many people jump to the
conclusion that they are the first cause of problems. If you have AV and
Anti Spyware programs installed, then malware is probably NOT the cause of
problems.
> I unchecked everything in msconfig, started in safe mode, deleted cookies
> and temp files...None did any good.
I still don't know the nature of the problem.
> computer was doing fine (well, as fine as dialup can be)
Dialup only affects your internet and email. Is that the kind of problem you
are having?
> to reinstall the modem.
Why did you reinstall the modem? I haven't used a dialup modem in quite
awhile and I never really had much troib;e when I was on dialup, other than
the slowness of the connection.
> Since then it is terrible to move from page to page.
What does that mean? Terrible is not a very informative word for
troubleshooting. Do you mean that it is taking longer to switch to a new
site? I have developing the bad habit of just reinstalling my OS when things
get bad and I can't find out why. That is probably agony for some, but I
have done it so long that it doesn't take very long. When I was using an
older Windows I would still use my rescue CD in reformat mode anyway, then
run the OS upgrad disk. Then I would resinstall my own sofware. Since XP
came out I only had to run the rescue CD and install my own applications.
The thing the ameliorates the pain of this process is the knowledge that it
eliminates all non hardware problems. My machine is just like it came from
the factory. No viruses or other malware or messed up configurations. More
recently I have switched to using Norton Ghost and cloning the C partition
to a partition at the end of the drive and of the same size. I do this after
running the rescue disk and any time I have installed new software or made
other significant changes. Then when things go haywire and I can't find a
solution I just clone the C drive copy back to C. It takes no mare than half
an hour in most cases. Since my data is all on other partitions only C is
effected.
> It isn't my phone lines because my laptop moves just great.
If your desktop modem works at all then it is probably OK. That leaves
something in the OS installation. Maybe someone else has a clue, I have less
skill in this area now having so readily gone for the brute force solution
so often.
> As I was watching AVG, I saw it scan a file called C:\recycler....what
> is that? Is it the recycle bin? I have never seen it before.
???
> in a previous AVG scan is shows C:\windows\system32.dll and it says
> changed while all the other files say OK.
I am still not clear whether your computer runs fine when not on the
internet. If so, I doubt that any important OS file is damaged. But you can
try this: sfc /scannow from Start, Run. This checks system files. Any found
to be damaged will result in a request to put your XP install disk in the
drive so that the damaged file can be replaced/
> I have a headache, can anyone redirect me so I don't have to throw
> this miserable thing out?
You don't need to throw your computer away, just wait take an asprin and lie
down for an hour or so. :-)
Jim
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