internet explorer 6 won't load graphics

[marycoe]

Hello, I am hoping you can help me. I am not really computer smart, so simple explanations/terms are much appreciated.

I have a 5 year old Compaq laptop. I am running Windows XP Pro. I believe it has Internet Explorer 6. I tried to upgrade to 7 but it said I couldn't unless I had SP 2. I have a DSL connection.

When I first get on-line IE will work fine, but after a short while it will stop loading graphics or parts of a page. Down at the bottom it might say "x items remaining" but the number never changes, and the rest of the stuff never loads. I visit some internet forums that have a lot of pics in them;  I know it's a lot of stuff and maybe it's too much for my computer??? But it's not just those pages that give me problems. I have a lycos email account and a lot of times I can't see the buttons (delete, reply, etc.) I log into my on-line banking and I can't see some of those buttons.

My computer is pretty bare bones - all it has on it is the operating system and Norton Antivirus. That's it. In fact I just had to reload the whole system because I was attacked by some horrible virus/worm. I was hoping once I reloaded it the IE problem would go away, but it's still here. It was here before the virus and it's still here now.

I know my computer's kind of old but I'm hoping there is a solution?

Thanks in advance!

[davidoc]

whyy have you not got sp2?...the first thing I would do is to get it and then get IE7. and see if that cures your problems.

[soybean]

I'm inclined to agree with davidoc.  Go here and download SP2.  If you have a CD/DVD burner, burn the SP2 download to a disk so that you won't need to download it again if you have to rebuild your system at a later date.

[marycoe]

thank you. that was a very simple solution; I guess I didn't realize I could do that. I feel kind of silly.

But it did work and my computer is like a breath of fresh air now. Wonderful! It hasn't worked this well in years.

[soybean]

That's good news!  Thanks for the feedback.

Look in Control Panel and get familiar with Windows Firewall and the Security Center, if you're not already familiar with it.  Make sure you have Windows Firewall, or a third-party firewall, running when you're on the Internet.