lost system tray icons & internet lockups

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Sorry guys, I am a new user and there are hundreds of articles in this forum. I am having problems, maybe some can help quicker than I can read all the postings. I use XP pro on AMD 1800, 1gig ram, Avast 4 (home).

Once connected to internet (dial-up), the computer freezes and task bar is inoperative. This happens with first time dial up from cold, from user log-off > user log on, or long periods of computer not being used (ie. overnight) and with any program that invokes a dial-up. I have to use to shut computer down then use the manual reset button to complete the shutdown process. I seem to need to do this several times. If I can get on the internet without a freeze-up, everything works fine.

When I start (or restart) my computer, several icons from the system tray are no longer accessible (disappear). It seems that if all the system tray icons appear, the computer will access internet without freezing up.

Anybody help?

2

Disable everything from loading at boottime that isn’t really needed for the system to work. And give it another try. Tell us if that helps.

3

I suggest you start Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and sort the processes by the CPU useage. If the column does not appear, show it (Show > Select columns).
Set it to be on top (Options) and reduce the size of the screen, try to see what is ‘locking’ the computer.
You can add a link to the Startup folder too until this is solved.

If it help, try to repair your avast installation (Control Panel > Add/Remove programs).
Which firewall do you use?

4

Eddy: I will re-install the program and try.

Technical: Yes, have looked there. There does not seem to be any high usage progams or dll’s running. In the program list, ie (or outlook or whatever) is the program that is not responding. On ‘end task’ it will eventually shut down. Another to shut down returns windows explorer as the program that has trouble shutting down. If this helps.

I have un-installed the program at the moment. Will re-install and try a few things.

5

Unfortunatelly not too much for me… maybe some driver or dll loaded is crashing the Explorer :-
Let’s wait for your reinstall…

6

Thank you for your help. I believe I may have stumbled across the answer in a post “avast! Error 10048 - port 25 problem” today. I was also getting this error and when removed the files as suggested, re-installed, restarted etc, everything seems to be working.

As a matter of interest, the missing system tray icons were:
Logitec camera, Intervideo WinCinema, Nvidia, Wireless mouse and MSActive Sync. Maybe all these programs have some influence (or vice-versa) on the program files I removed, or perhaps they all have something to do with port25 ?

All seems to be going now - for the moment.

7

well, almost. The virus scan, internet, mail etc all work fine, however the screen saver and monitor power down no longer function.

any ideas? someone experienced this before? are there some settings that have been changed or that I need to change?