My computer is a 500Mhz Pentium III, 10gb hard drive, 56k internal modem and I am running Windows 98. I connect to the internet on a dial-up basis, using our one phone line and unplugging the phone connection to plug in the modem lead. I don’t use call-waiting on our phone. When I log on I can use the Internet Explorer for maybe 15 to 40 minutes (depending on the sites I visit - chat rooms shorten the time, as will
sites with graphics) and then my browser will refuse to load any new pages, and will kick me out if I am in a chat room. I can use the browser for a little longer before this happens if I de-select pictures, animation and suchlike and only download text, but eventually I will get kicked out and the “Page cannot be displayed” message will show. I will still be able to download email on Outlook Express, and connect to mIRC chat, but I won’t be able to visit any websites, including ones I might have been on only a few minutes beforehand. Even the page that displays when I log on will not load. I prefer Internet Explorer 5, but the same problem has occurred when using Netscape. My ISP has suggested a few options I have tried and has checked my connection configuration, but nothing has resolved the problem. They suggested the problem is in my phone line, but I don’t understand why it only occurs after I’ve been online for a while. The computer is fine to use for a while and if I disconnect and reboot I can gain more time, but the problem always recurs. Any ideas would be most gratefully received.

This is certainly a unique problem! As your ISP has gone through all of your internet settings and verified them we can assume that they are all correct. What I firstly suggest you do, is go to another computer and connect to your ISP from there. This will prove either the problem is being caused by your computer or it is being caused by your ISP. If the problem does persist on the other computer, it seems that the problem is to do with your ISP, possibly (although unlikely) it may have something to do with the type of internet plan you are on. Although you probably don’t want to hear this, the only way to resolve this, is to contact your ISP again and explain to them that it occurs on other computers as well. On the other hand, if the problem doesn’t occur on the other computer, read on!

Let’s firstly check out the possibility that you have too high demand on the phone line. You mentioned that you do not have call waiting enabled. Do you have any other features such as message bank running on your phone line? If you do, then make sure these are disabled. Also, do you have any other phones connected onto your phone line when you are using the internet? If you do, unplug all phones before using the internet. However, I do not think that this problem is with the phone line as if it was, your whole internet connection would drop out rather than just one part of it (ie. the WWW doesn’t work, yet email and IRC does).

Now that we have confirmed this problem is most likely not related to the phone line, we will have to try and narrow it down to either a hardware problem or a software problem. If the problem is hardware related, the suspect device would be the modem. I suggest that you try connecting a friend’s modem to your computer to see whether the problem persists. If it doesn’t, your problem is obviously your modem. In this case, I suggest that you buy a new modem (preferably not the same brand as your current troublesome modem). However, if the problem still persists, then it would appear to be a software related problem.

As the problem is occurring in both Internet Explorer and Netscape we can assume that the problem is system wide, just not confined to one browser. It is a possibility that this problem could be caused by one or more programs running in the background of Windows. To test this theory, firstly logoff the internet and reboot your computer. Once your computer has loaded, close all applications which are running in the Windows system tray and also close any non-visible applications by pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and forcefully closing any non-essential applications (NB: There are some Windows essential system applications which need to run in the background eg. ‘Explorer’ and ’systray’. Make sure that you don’t close these). When this has been done, connect to the internet again and see if the problem persists. If it does, then we can rule out any background applications causing the problem.

That just about exhausts the usual suspects! The final cause of this problem that comes to mind is that Windows has been damaged in someway and is causing the problem itself. In this case, I can only see reinstalling Windows as the way to fix this. However, please do not commence the reinstall for a couple of weeks incase any readers have other suggestions regarding your problem. So if any other readers have any suggestions, please send them in!