Sorry - alles auf englisch getextet!
I´m running XP Home Edition (german) on a Gericom notebook (Webshox 1720E DVD), and have been plagued for the last 3 months or so by a freeze effect when I dial into the Internet using its 56k modem (either AOL or Arcor access). Access via a home network with a Desktop PC (also XP home) & DSL seemed unaffected, but every time I needed to use an analogue telephone line (hotel etc.) this bug just crippled the notebook immediately after initial Internet access.
The mouse cursor moved, but everything else just didn´t respond (apart from one brief spurt of limited activity) until suddenly after about 9-10 minutes all those stored-up clicks got executed and everything seemed normal again.
I´ve spent literally hours and days trying to solve this, not wanting to re-install XP again (apart from this bug, the notebook was really stable).
By starting the Taskmanager before dialling, I was able to identify one "svchost" process as at least being involved in the bug (when I killed this particular svchost process, everything unfroze, but internet access was broken and could only be restarted by rebooting - and then the freeze re-ocurred...).
However, I´m not a Windows programmer & had no idea what exactly "svchost" does (there are 4-5 instances of it running, the one with the most memory was the culprit).
A few weeks ago a computer-savvy accqaintance suggested Network Address Translation (NAT) as the culprit, but my "googling" delivered loads of info which I had no time or inclination to read and digest.
Finally last night, after hours of trawling the Internet, loading & executing several Spyware programs - all of which found found different items to be immunised/quarantined/deleted but none of which solved the problem - I found a tip suggesting "tasklist" to show what´s running in the "container" of "svchost". After downloading "tasklist" (not included in XP Home Edn. - how useful!), I was able to see the services contained in the suspect "svchost" process.
The first one was "6to4".
Google took me to a description of "6to4", on reading that, NAT came immediately to mind.
XP Help for "6to4"delivered the syntax:
"ipv6 uninstall" !
Rebooted, dialled in and everything seems to be working fine now - no freezing, no noticeable negative side-effects.
Can someone provide some insight into what the f**k this was all about, and why there appears to be so little information on this bug (if bug it is)? Most of the "freeze" tips I found pointed towards Spyware, virus, sh*t AOL etc, but I suspect this could be the cause of headaches for many other users.
Can I expect problems running without "ipv6"?
Rod Gast |