Issues Specific To The Internet

If your troubles stem from the internet or specific Web sites, read on for possible explanations and fixes that will have you surfing again in no time.

Unavailable Web site. Occasionally, you may be unable to access a Web site that you visited previously without any troubles. This can happen if the Web site's ISP (Internet Service Provider) temporarily disabled the site, if the administrator failed to renew the Web registry data, or if too many people try accessing the site at the same time. Often when a site you access is unavailable, you will receive the "HTTP 404 Not Found" error message. One way to know if a site is temporarily down is to check another commercial site to see if your Internet connection is active. If you can access some sites but not one particular site, you may simply need to try accessing the site at a later time. You can also try deleting your Internet temporarily files. To do this in Internet Explorer 7, for instance, open the Tools menu and select Internet Options. Next, click the Delete button under the Browsing History section and click Delete All. When you delete these temporary files, IE can access Web sites instead using of possibly outdated local files on your computer for a particular site.

Contact Your ISP. If you checked the common causes of Internet connection problems, such as a loose network cable or a disabled LAN card, consider contacting your ISP for technical support and ask about possible outages. Some ISPs experience occasional problems in certain areas. In fact, when you call for technical support, you may hear a recording that will list the affected cities and estimate timeframes for when the ISP will have the problem resolved. If there is a connection problem between your modem and the ISP, your provider may need to send out a technician to inspect the line. Before you request a technician, be sure to turn off the modem an wait a few minutes to refresh the settings and then turn the modem on again to see if you still experience problems. Also, try rebooting your computer and router (if you are using one)

Trouble With IE And Firefox. If you experience frequent system crashes while surfing the internet using IE or Mozilla Firefox, it is possible that the person responsible for designing the site didn't use the correct coding when building the site. This also may be the cause if you only see a few graphics load, before your browser closes suddenly or displays an error message. The solution, either avoid the site or try using a different browser. If you are using IE, for example , try downloading and running Firefox instead. A second common reason for crashes has to do with Windows XP. If other programs you use, such as Microsoft Word, or Adobe Photoshop, also tend to crash, you may have spyware or a virus loaded on your PC. It is also possible that your system has become unstable due to corrupted files or memory problems. If programs you use frequently tend to crash just as often as a Web browser, consider rebuilding the system by reinstalling WinXP or upgrading to Windows Vista. If your troubles are primarily with your browser crashing, you may need to reinstall IE.