infurating problem with IE, please help!
 

Hi all,

Something is bugging the crap outta me!

Basically, If I try and type into a text box, such as the one to place a post on here, or in an on-line Outlook client. It's as if my computer suddenly suffers a major bout of lag between a keystroke and the character appearing. It's varies between missing characters altogether, or just being really slow in updating. Almost like it's busy doing something else.

I'm sure this started a couple of days ok after downloading an update for JAVA. So, I tried turning JAVA off, nowt! Tried a system restore from about 3 diff points before the update, nowt. In fact, it wouldn't let me perform a restore, not even from safe mode;something about an unspecified error. I checked with Norton Security Suite (which has not caused probs before) and system scan reports all clean. I look on the networking screen to check for unauthorised users on my wireless connection, and nothing! I check the network activity monitor and if I'm not surfing all is quiet, so I don't think it's malacious.

I've not changed any other settings as far as I'm aware, nor installed anything dodgy! Donload speeds seem fine, web page loading can be a bit clunky, but I guess that's Norton doing it's thing (I'd never noticed how buy that light that indicated the CPU/harddrive is use is - even when you're inactive!)

Other programs where you'd type text in e.g. word are fine, so it's not a hardware issue!

As a last resort, I restored IE back to default settings (i.e.deleted all the add ons etc.) That seems to have improved things, but it's still not back to normal)

A suggestions as to what might be the culprit and how I can resolve it? Pulling my hair out here! :)

BTW My laptop is a 2.0 GHz core 2 with 2 gig memory, running Vista and Norton Internet security suite. Windows defender etc are off so as not to confict with Norton.

Any help MUCH appreciated!

Ns04

How often is the IE history cleared?

If you want to eliminate a browser issue try installing Firefox and see if that runs any better.

Bob,

Very often mate, once every 3 days on average. Oddly enough, yesterday it was fine (so don't think it's IE per se), today, it's not so good! I have a suspicion its Norton updates bogging things down for some reason.

Is it worth making the swap to another security suite? e.g. Zonelabs?

Ns04

I personally hate Norton, it seems to bloat your system.

I've used Nod32 for the last few years and i think quite a few on here do too.

Yep, NOrton is very likely the problem (seen this a few times before). I'd recommend the Nod32 software as well. It's pretty much the best out there...

Norton is absolutely t*ss IMHO - as a software developer I've seen countless network infections in companies running Norton or Symantec.

I personally recommend anyone to use AVG - it's FREE and it picks up viruses that my copy of McAfee doesn't find too - I run both on my system (windows xp pro) and I don't suffer from any lag.

Note that you'll probably always find IE a bit slower than Firefox (whatever version you run), and IE always tends to be slightly more slow and unstable in my experience (I've been developing web software since IE3!)

In addition to checking your cache etc I'd also recommend you check your IE add-ons to ensure that a rogue site hasn't installed something that's sapping your bandwidth - again, check for this in the task manager when you experience your slow down and see what's sapping CPU or memory.

I didn't originally notice you say you're running Vista - can't comment on this - the only experience I had on Vista was on my friend's laptop and I must say I hated it - it took 10 times longer to install iTunes on Vista than Xp for no good reason - it may just be the OS....

Good luck!

Just a shot in the dark...do you have Spybot S&D installed?

If so, I'd try removing the immunisation (or the whole application), see if that makes a difference.

It has been noted it can cause a severe latancy issue in windows mail and explorer. (latest version appears to be ok now though). However its possible some other internet security software may cause this aswell (not pointing fingers at Norton, but they do have a reputation ;) ).

This is a thread I dragged up on the root cause of issue that affect spybot S&D in winXP: AumHa Forums It did affect Vista aswell (so the solutions in that thread may differ).....but I thought it would have been resolved by now, but maybe I'm wrong, or its another issue altogether.