BleepingComputer.com: Firefox timing out almost instantly

I'm running Firefox 3.5.5 on a windows machine with XP Pro Service pack 3 and AVG Internet Security 9.0. There are times that my web pages load fine, then other times my pages won't load or refresh. When the browser is acting up I see the swirly thing in the tab and a progress bar at the bottom that goes through it's cycle in about a half a second and no new page. I've tried holding the control when clicking on a link and a new tab opens with the link address in the address bar but no page. If I repeatedly click on the refresh maybe the fifth or fiftieth time the page will load. I get the same response sometimes when I just try to reload a page that didn't load all the way the first time. I've tried disabling the firewall thinking that maybe it might have been blocking something. I've ran a complete virus and root-kit scan on my computer, it came back clean. I download and ran MBAM found 4 infections fix them all to no avail. I've run System file checker "sfc /Scannow" to make sure that system files weren't missing or broken. I think this problem started about three weeks ago after a power outage and have run chkdsk in safe mode to make sure that there wasn't problems with the hark drive or file system. The problem has continued to get worse as the days go by. I've even downloaded IE 8 it does the same thing. I have also reinstalled my network card with no luck on resolving this. PLEASE help me.

What happens if you disable the firewall in AVG security? Do you still have the problem?

Disabling the firewall in the past has had no effect, but I will try it again. I will follow up with another post later today to let you know my results.

That didn't take too long within 10 minutes of disabling the firewall, I received the same results. Disabling the firewall has had no effect!

When your browser times out, can you check, if "ping" command will show any connection exist?
Since it started happening after power outage, maybe your network card got little bit "sunburned".

You may need to restart your modem. Power it off/unplug it for about 15 secs (30 may have better results) and see if the connection stabilizes then.

You could also try hooking another computer to the modem to see if the problem occurs on that machine.

In reply to Broni's post about a bad network card, I thought about that and added another network card to see if that was my problem. Most of the time, by the time I open the command line to run the ping command, network communications are working again. There have been a couple of times when the comm's were down long enough for me to run a few diagnostics though. When this happens I do have a extension added to Firefox called "Broadband Speed Test and Diagnostics 1.2.5" which shows communication to the NIC but not to the Gateway or the internet. I am running a home network with two other computers on the network. None of the other computers are experiencing any network problems. I think that just covered MadDawg's post about cycling the modem and or router also.

I'm very grateful for your suggestions and I am looking at every suggestion and trying them in hopes that I may have missed something dumb.

I suggest, you completely uninstall AVG, using AVG Remover: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download-tools and see what happens.
Ultimately, you can reinstall it, if that doesn't cure the problem.

OK, I uninstalled AVG Internet Security and then used the removal tool on the link provided to remove every last trace of the program from my computer.

I then got back online and browsed around this forum for a couple of hours, not wanting to do too much without a firewall or anti-virus software. All seemed to be working GOOD!

I then reinstalled the latest copy of AVG from their site, and browsed around my usual haunts for a couple more hours. All was still working fine. I'll post again some time tomorrow to give an update.

Thanks again, I hope it worked. First appearances said it did .

Good news
Personally, I stopped recommending AVG since ver. 8.0, because it became a hog and it started causing all kind of problems, like yours, for instance.

OK, here's the state of things at the moment. I haven't yet completely lost connectivity, but have noticed that I do sometimes
have to reload another tab to click a link in the current one. I'm not sure if this is a new problem or a continuation of current one.

My subscription to AVG is going to end in a few more months, I have noticed that it is a CPU hog. What do you recommend?

I'd get rid of it now.
You paid for it already, so if you install one of excellent free programs, you don't lose anything.
Make sure, you use AVG Remover.

Your options:

- Avira free antivirus: http://www.free-av.com/en/download/1/avira..._antivirus.html
- Avast! free antivirus: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

- free Comodo Internet Security (firewall + AV): http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
NOTE. During installation, Comodo will also allow you to install AV only, or firewall only, if you prefer to combine one Comodo product with some other product.

If you decide to install Avast, or Avira, make sure, Windows firewall is turned on, or use Comodo firewall..
If you decide to install Comodo Internet Security, or just Comodo firewall, make sure, Windows firewall is turned off.

IMPORTANT! Make sure, you use only ONE antivirus, and ONE firewall.

The increase in performance got re-motivated to figure this thing out. I did find another problem in my Device Manager, it was another nic card that either was not completely installed or not properly removed and my new Ethernet card somehow attached itself to this device. It took me almost a whole day to figure out how to remove this device since the parent device was no longer listed in device manager. the following is how it was removed.

1. Press [Windows]+[Break] to bring up the System Properties dialog box.
2. Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.
3. Click the New button below the System Variables panel.
4. In the New System Variable dialog box, type "devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices" in the Variable Name text box and 1 in the Variable Value text box.
5. Click OK to return to the System Properties dialog box and then click OK again.
6. Select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.
7. In Device Manager, go to View | Show Hidden Devices.
8. Expand the various branches in the device tree and look for the washed out icons, which indicate unused device drivers.
9. To remove an unused device driver, right-click the icon and select Uninstall.

After I removed the corrupted driver my problems immediately seemed to disappear. FYI I am still running AVG Internet Security until I can test and evaluate an alternative. THANKS Again for the help it was and always is appreciated. Hopefully this post will help somebody else in the future.

Interesting. I would never have thought to go that route. Thanks for letting us know how you resolved it.

Very interesting