I am fairly well clued up on pc's; having built my own since day one but laptops seem to have a life of their own? I bought a second hand Acer Extensa 500T for my daughter to use for her college work (veterinary) and I got everything absolutely spot on and running perfectly EXCEPT, when she accesses the internet via my Belkin 4 port router it goes into reboot. Sometimes not immediately but always ends up doing it. Especially when attempting to download or access her emails. The router is set up correctly, her IP is registered with the cable people and her card 3Com 10/100 has the latest drivers downloaded from 3Com themselves. The laptop is a P2 233 with 97mb ram and connects to a 1mb broadband port via RJ45 cable. She has ZoneAlarm fitted too, running on Win98. I took it to a shop who could find - zilch! There has to be some sort of conflict in progress, but what, and where, is doing my proverbial head in! The other 2 pc's accessing the net through this router are both "biggies" running on XP Pro and we have no problem. My son in his room plays online games in real time (no delays). The light on her router port is active, therefore there is a suitable, working connection.

Any sucessful results will result in my bestowing immortality on the winner!!

I bet on that :
She has ZoneAlarm fitted too, running on Win98
ZoneAlarm made me format my hard drive, the last time I used it with Win98, because I was not able to go to Internet anymore (it shut down from time to time - a few seconds/minutes)

Not sure how up to speed you are on zonealarm, SG-N. You have to give permission to each place you go in zonealarm or it won't connect. That is after all the purpose of a firewall.

Do a full virus scan on the laptop, sounds like the darned blastervirus.

Originally posted by wet1
Not sure how up to speed you are on zonealarm, SG-N. You have to give permission to each place you go in zonealarm or it won't connect. That is after all the purpose of a firewall.

Two things to answer :
1) I'm IT security student...
2) I was not the only one : http://zdnet.com.com/3302-2092_2-10153456.html?pn=2&fb=2

Don't worry : I didn't take it bad! :D

(Edit : "didn't take" or "didn't took"?)

For a windows system to reboot there are only a few available reasons.

The first being that the user asks it to reboot (which is not the case), which can also point to an unauthorised user rebooting it.

The main reason for a windows shutdown is usually a hardware confliction or the system shutting down because of overheating.

Now since your talking about a laptop then the likelihood is that it could be down to overheating, you should make sure that if your running a laptop to use the little retractible legs if fitted to stop the laptops caseing being flush with a table surface to reduce heat.

Sometimes when there is a bufferoverflow in the RAM it too can cause a reboot since it will cause Drivers to be forcively purged, crashing the system.

Notibly if your daughter is checking her e-mail and is using something like Outlook Express, then there is the potential for her to be using something like MSN messenger also.

Messenger services can be good to talk to people, but they are also the tool of many a script kiddie that like to tinker with peoples systems. There are many different tools that have been rigged to such services that can do anything from spying on your system to "Rebooting" based on what a user might output as their "Identy/Signature".

You could try some third-party e-mail software like Eudora (www.eudora.com), or make sure you get as many "updates" as possible for the laptop.

Lastly, there was a trick that used to be played with certain modem types that if a particular string was sent to the modem it was possible to send a person computer into reboot. I'm not 100% sure if the 3Com LAN would be affected by this.

If I was to debug this properly, I would probably use a Packetscan set up between your router and the laptop to work out "IF" any malicious data is being sent, and if so what, but thats a bit too technical for just average PC users to start doing.

Let us know how it goes.

When I have a computer problem (and I also call my self a computer nerd) i go to TomsHardware.com (http://www.community.tomshardware.com/forum/categories.m) there is no shame in asking for advice, you can always find the info alone but it will take much MUCH longer.

Regarding Zone alarm, it is not the problem, I have used for so long I know it well.

Stryder, I will check out your "solution" when I get time. I am permanent nightshift at present, working 50 miles from home.

This problem has been occuring since well before blaster came out but I will also check that out.

Overheating it is not. The laptop was only switched on minutes before, it did not have time to heat up. We can access the net no problem, when she tries, or I try, to access another site from her homepage or download a program or whatever it goes immediately into reboot. The blaster is a good reply but doubtful, but nevertheless, I will try it with the fix I got from MS this very morning. Whoa! Isn't blaster only effective against XP?

Blasters payload is designed for XP & 2000 systems

Originally posted by Red Devil
This problem has been occuring since well before blaster came out but I will also check that out.


The security isssue with blaster is known about for several months now, maybe you were patient zero :D

No, the reason I discounted that possibility was that my daughters laptop runs on Win 98. Apparently Blaster only affects XP.

Now come on Blaster is not he cause of every computer problem!

Yes, I know that and which is why I am discounting that posibility

Originally posted by Red Devil
No, the reason I discounted that possibility was that my daughters laptop runs on Win 98. Apparently Blaster only affects XP. Oops misread the OS you were using

all we mistakes make ;)