I have had this problem for 2 or 3 months. About 6 months ago I reformatted my computer and installed Windows XP (used to have ME). I am still running Service Pack 1. I also put in a wireless antenna in the back and was able to get great internet access using Netgear products. A few months later I installed Norton Antivirus 2005, and around the same time I added this thing with USB 2 and Firewire hubs. This caused the wireless internet to stop working. There is this icon in the system tray that tells me how much signal I have and it said there was no signal, though all the other computers in my house had signal. I disabled the firewire ports and it worked fine after that (until this new problem). I have a Gateway that is almost 4 years old with 624 RAM (i added some a while back) and 1.2GHz with an AMD Athlon Processor. I don't know what info is useful so I will try to give a lot.
HERE is my newest problem:
About 2 months after my last change to the computer I started having this problem. Whenever I go online, after a while the internet stops working. Sometimes it happens after only being online for a minute, sometimes it takes half an hour, sometimes it never happens before I turn off the computer again. But lately it has gotten worse, and I have to restart all the time. Restarting the computer brings the internet back, though for an unknown amount of time. Unlike before when my wireless signal would go out, this internet problem is more sneaky. The wireless signal strenght remains strong (Excellent it says) but it stops sending and recieving bytes (i can see this when i double click on the 2 compters in the system tray).
Which gets me to another odd thing, which is that sometimes when I restart, instead of the internet fixing itself, a Found New Hardware Wizard opens up and it tells me that I have a new Network Controller (the one that I installed months ago!) I hit cancel and restart again and then the internet is back to normal, for a while. I installed Microsoft AntiSpyware but it didn't find spyware.
Also, often when I restart not all of the usual icons appear in the system tray. Sometimes the Norton one is there, sometimes it’s disabled, sometimes it’s gone. Sometimes the spyware icon is there, sometimes not. Sometimes the wireless signal strength icon is gone, even when the internet is working.
Last week my computer randomly restarted all by itself while I was using it. I read some stuff online and I think this is because my power supply is overworked and old, so I’ve been careful not to keep the computer on for too long at a time, and recently it hasn’t restarted suddenly.
Something else that happens when my internet stops working is that just before, and then after, the mouse freezes in a choppy way. It will freeze for a few seconds and then move again, like the computer is processing too much at once. I check the CPU usage and sure enough there are random spikes to 100% or at least 65% every 10 seconds or so. Sometimes this gets worse and worse until I have to manually turn off the computer because I can’t get the mouse to move to the restart button. I check the processes and it doesn’t look like anything is taking up more than one or two CPUs at a time.
I’m sorry this is so long but I am really at a loss! Please help! Any thoughts at all will be appreciated.
