Cannot Access forums.anandtech.com

[rabrittain]

This problem is occuring on 1 of my 2 machines. Obviously I'm not reporting this from the machine that has the problem. My AMD machine does not have the problem; my Intel machin has the problem. I have been working all day on solving the problem, and I am now compelled to say that I just don't understand it.

I am able to go to any other website without any problem. Sometimes, after a shutdown/reboot, I am able to go to the anandtech forum page, but Internet Explore shuts down when I try to open a thread. If I don't reboot, and if I open up Internet Exporer and try to access the forums.anandtech.com page, Internet Explorer closes. Whenever this problem occurs, I get the little window that asks me if I want to send information regarding the problem to Microsoft.

There may be something wrong with my computer, but I have searched all day.... I believe the problem started when I was on the forum, and I accidently closed the browser window without first logging out. I was able to return to the site and log in, and review threads one time without a problem. Then I logged out and closed the browser. Since then, I have not been able to acces threads on the Anandtech Forum site on my Intel machine. I am even able to go to all other parts of the Anandtech website without any hint of a problem. The moment I access the forum, Internet Explorer (6.0) shuts down.

Can anyone help me?

 

[Coquito]

I think the ads aren't playing nice with your machine.

 

[rabrittain]

Originally posted by: Coquito
I think the ads aren't playing nice with your machine.

I don't buy it. I did a spyware scan. I had nothing but a few tracking cookies. I cleard my history. I deleted my cookies. I deleted every thing in my temporary internet folder, including all offline content. I did a bunch of other stuff. I rebooted many times. I still have the problem

:|

 

[narzy]

use firefox? or safari? or opera?

 

[rabrittain]

Ok ... to a degree ... I am, in some ways, a little anti-microsoft myself. I tried IE 7.0 and found it to be too slow and bloated. I uninstalled it. There were still traces of 7.0 floating around when I went back to 6.0. So I formatted the drive, did a clean install of XP --- That was months ago -- and that was on the AMD machine. I just built the Intel machine a couple of weeks ago -- and I'm very careful concerning what programs I install. I run XP pro on both machines -- wouldn't consider running Vista. If I installed another browser, how would I get updates for my OS? Also, I would have to learn all of the ins and outs (and ideosyncracies) of a new browser.

I'm used to IE6. I like it, and I don't see any reason to change at this time.

 

[BlackMountainCow]

If you install Firefox, it won't replace IE, it'll just run side by side with IE. I've been using firefox for years now, and still get all my updates via IE. It's just not my everyday browser. And I think that Coquito wasn't talking about spyware, but the flash adverts on the TA site. Some of them sometimes make my firefox crash as well. No idea why, but there are certain sites I can't visit without a firefox crash. But they work fine in IE. If I deactivate flash, I can visit all sites I want. Maybe you should try deactivating Java, Flash, and all the "fancy" stuff in IE and try again.

 

[Spacehead]

You could download FF, or another browser, just to see if it works or not. Might help in the trouble shooting.

You could add the following entry in your host file to see if it's the ads that are causing the problem:
127.0.0.1 dynamic2.anandtech.com

 

[Coquito]

Originally posted by: rabrittain

Originally posted by: Coquito
I think the ads aren't playing nice with your machine.

I don't buy it. I did a spyware scan. I had nothing but a few tracking cookies. I cleard my history. I deleted my cookies. I deleted every thing in my temporary internet folder, including all offline content. I did a bunch of other stuff. I rebooted many times. I still have the problem

:|

I meant ads in regards to the ones on the page. The flash, the frames, maybe something there is creating the error.

 

[rabrittain]

Thanks for your advise , BMC. Your solutions have merit. The only thing that bothers me is that I have Flash installed on both machines, and am only having a problem on one. Also, the problem started early in the morning (2/21, PST) Before this morning, there was no problem.

You have prompted me to more closely examine the differences between the 2. Shockwave is installed on the one with the problem. Also, the OS on the good machine has been updated a lot. I've only begun to do updates on the Intel machine. I haven't done much though. Initially, 2 weeks ago, I upgraded to wmp 10 -- that's about it. Today, (I'm grasping at straws , here) in an effort to see if I could correct the problem, I updated .Net Framework 2.0 -- no help. I believe that I will do more updates -- I will try to do the same ones that are on the machine with no problem -- perhaps an XML update will help.

Hmmm, this will tend to interfere some with my crunching.

The good machine has an All-In-Wonder card. I have discovered that I can still watch television with BOINC running in the baackground. The 2 computers are fairly close to each other; they're at different desks. The desks are against the same wall - 6 ft (~1.8m) apart. I'm used to browsing the internet, kepping a watch on the stats on one while I watch television on the other. The computer that I have become accustomed to browsing with is the one with the problem -- it's unacceptable for me not to be able to reach the anandtech forum with that computer. If I am browsing on the TV computer, I can't stay abreast of the struggle between Hillary and Obama -- I can't see what's happening in Kosovo; etc.

Oh nooooooooo. As you read the preceding paragraph, you may have realized that I'm a little bit off my rocker.

... I live with it. That other guy may be schizophrenic.

 

[rabrittain]

Thanks, Coquito and Spacehead for your suggestions!

Hang with me a while. We'll get this thing figured out!!

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Out of curiosity, what anti-virus do you have installed? Some users have had issues with the forums while using Kaspersky AV.

Originally posted by: rabrittain
... I live with it. That other guy may be schizophrenic.

^ That made me laugh out loud. I'm glad no one else was in dispatch -- me laughing for seemingly no reason seems to make people worry.

 

[rabrittain]

^ That made me laugh out loud. I'm glad no one else was in dispatch -- me laughing for seemingly no reason seems to make people worry.

On the machine with no problem I have a licensed version of AVG 7.5. On the machine with the problem I have a free version of AVG 7.5.

people ... worry?? I laugh out loaud for seemingly no reason all the time. I must laugh. Everything is so ... rediculus. (Now ... where is that spell checker?) My dog seems to understand ..., but he's truly twisted.

:laugh:

 

[rabrittain]

So ... now it is after 1 am, PST, and I am posting this reply from the machine that had the problem all day yesterday. I haven't made any changes on it for the past several hours. Right at the moment, there doesn't seem to be a problem. Go figure. There's a ghost in the machine.

For most of the last 2 hours I have been studying the differences between the 2 machines. I have written down all of the updates that have been installed on the machine with no problems, and during the next week or 2 I will be doing updates, as time permits on the Intel machine. I'm slow. I don't use the automatic update feature. I install updates one at a time. I have installed multiple updates in the past before, and it has caused problems. I like to install one, evaluate the machine, and, if is ok, move on to the next one.

BOINC is running in the background -- still no problems. effen computers.



edit: the ads seem different.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

The forums were down for me too a little while ago. They might have just been having issues with the forums themselves. Although I am not sure if those issues began at 10 pm...

 

[rabrittain]

Ok -- my watch just synchronized with the atomic clock in Fort Collins a few minutes ago, and it's ~0217 pst, and I am talking again from the machine that the problem was on yesterday. I still haven't figured out why one machine had the problem and the other didn't. The machine that did not have the problem is about twice as fast as the one that did. The machine that did not have the problem has many updates installed.

...maybe I'll never know.

...maybe I should go to bed. Oops. I should have taken that ziprasidone around 10 pm. It slows down my mind so that I can sleep ... and keeps me from being so paranoid ... and a few other things.

...I think there's someone outside. He wants to get me!

 

[Alyx]

Strange. My guess is the adds too, after working tech support for the past few years with ~350 person user base I've found flash causes all kinds of problems. Some websites work for some folks, sometimes they don't and when they don't it always turns into a crash. I've even had 8 or 9 computers that flash wouldn't install on, the installer would hang and the browser crash on pages with lots of flash. The only solution I could find was a quick reinstall.

What a pain!

Btw, I hope you got along well with the guy outside.