Puter Question

[LixyChick]

A friend of mine had a Gateway computer and was running Windows 98. Started having problems which were most noticable when sending email...it would come back all the time or freeze her puter. Then, she'd go to her game sites and it started freezing then. Someone told her she had a virus and her ISP (EnterNet...a local ISP...which I happen to have as well) walked her through some stuff to quarintine the virus...yada, yada, yada. Lo and behold...her computer eventually crashed and she had to buy a new one.

She got a Dell with Windows XP. She's all set up now and she says she hates it! She says she can send email to everyone but when she sends something to me it keeps coming back to her. I haven't had an email from her since just before the crash...which could be a good thing cause she'd usually bombard me with silliness...but that's another story...lol! Also, she said she'll get some emails from other peeps 6-7 times or more...after she's deleted it each and every time. It just keeps coming back to her. She still has the same ISP and they've walked her hubby through some steps that was suppose to eliminate the problem. She knows very little about puters (even less than me) and yet she says she'd NEVER get a Dell again. I told her puters are like cars...the outside can be any model, but it's what's inside (under the hood) that counts. Hey! It sounded good when I said it!

Anyway...my question? What the dillio? Does Dell suck, as she suspects? Or could it be Windows XP? Or, could she have carried the virus over from her old puter? Any help would be greatly appreciated...and please remember my fellow Pixies...you are talking to an infant in the world of putereze...so please try and talk down to me!

Thank you in advance!

[Lilith]

Mail programs are just software not the computer's fault. How does she check her mail and what sort of addy does she have? The account from her ISP? Yahoo? Hotmail? If she copied stuff from the old puter to the new then yes she could have reinfected herself, depending what it was.

[Sharni]

Personally i'd put the trouble down to software not hardware

[MilkToast]

I would agree with Lilith and Sharni, this sounds like a software problem not hardware. It's not like the PC is crashing all the time, the mail program she is using is either not working properly or is misconfiured.

I would start with checking all the settings for the mail software that she is using and make sure that things like "leave message on server" are not checked, if they are no matter how many times you delete it locally each time you check it downloads it again. This is not a likely cause, as she would just fill her inbox up quickly and stop getting new mail... but it is worth checking.

The other thing I would see is if the mail access she is using (be it her own ISP, Yahoo, etc) has a web based interface. She can check her mail using that for a little while and see if the duplicate messages just keep showing up (maybe the oher end has a virus that is sending lots of messages?) there. The other thing is that she can try to e-mail you from there as well and see if the result is any different. If it works from a web based interface then it is the local software, if not then it might be the user :p

While I know that there are some around that do not like Dell machines, my luck with them has been very good. I do not care for the performance of their "economy" line of PCs but I have found them to work rather well right out of the box. We use hundreds of them at work. And if you spend the big bucks for their really high end boxes they are really nice workstations.

[PantyFanatic]

What he ----^ said. :)



AND…………..:D not to regret making a major upgrade with her equipment. NOTHING has ever been quite like the electronics revolution, particularly with PCs. While the functional obsolescence time frame has changed from any previous devise man has every made, we have never had anything that that improved by magnitudes in that shortened life cycle and had it’s replacement available at fractions of the previous cost. This takes a little mental adjustment to get use to and is still not applicable to anything else in our surroundings.



......... I think. ;)

[dicksbro]

What the dillio?

The dildo is that long vinyl or rubber like thing ... usually flesh colored ... er ...

wait a minute ...

that wasn't your question. :D




Resume your discussion. :D :D

[Scarecrow]

yea what they ^^^^ said :thumb:







:grin:

[musicman]

I have a Dell at home and several at work and love em....never had any serious problems...

i suspect it's software too!

[LixyChick]

WOW! OK...cool! I can actually understand everything stated above. Well, almost everything...PF always throws me a curve ball or two...lol! TY so much everyone...for the suggestions as to what to ask and/or look for.

If no one minds...I am gonna copy this page and give it to her to show the person she gets to help her with her puter configurations and to tell her ISP.

As a sidebar...I just found out yesterday, that she is still running A.O.L. instant messaging. Now, she doesn't use the IM herself...but her granddaughter does and she sometimes leaves it open when she is done using it. My friend doesn't always exit it when she logs in and I'm beginning to think A.O.L. could be part of her problem...as she doesn't have it as an ISP, but just as an IM service. Her ISP (EnterNet) is her email account as well. As I said, I have EnterNet as my ISP...but I use Hotmail and Yahoo for my email addy[s]. I had told her a long time ago, when she first got A.O.L. IM for her grandaughter, that she might have problems because of it. It was just my experience from others I know who have anything to do with A.O.L.

Again...TY so much everyone...and ROFLMFAO@dicksbro!

((((((everyone))))))))

[Lilith]

I have AOL (IM only) and never exit any of my IM programs when I turn my puter off and have no problems. Of course my puter is rarely off :p

[LixyChick]

I have AOL (IM only) and never exit any of my IM programs when I turn my puter off and have no problems. Of course my puter is rarely off :p
Oh...OK Lil. Maybe that has nothing to do with her problem. It's frustrating to try and tell her it isn't the Dell that's causing the problem cause she doesn't know hardware from software, or any ware for that matter. And, the real difficult part is that her father (in Fla.) HATES Dell's and has told her so many times and is now telling her, "See, I told you so". You know how that goes...

Anyway, I gave her the page I printed from the responses here (sans avatars and the Pixie addy...lol!) and told her to show it to her daughter-in-law. She's the one who helps her with configuring her puter...so I hope she'll get some insight from the help you all gave me...and not perpetuate this notion that it's the Dell and not the software! I can't, for the life of me, make my friend understand that factor of this problem. When I say she knows less than I do about puter's, that's an understatement! I'm a geek genius compared to her. I think she knows how to turn it on, log in (and that's only cause it's set up to log in automatically when she goes to her game sites), go to her email, read and delete or reply or forward. That's it! She didn't even know about defragmenting till I told her...and her daughter-in-law told her it's set up on an auto defrag. Geesh! It's tough to talk to her about it cause all she keeps saying is, "I'll NEVER get another Dell...I hate it"!

Is it legal to smack the shit out of a good friend? :grin:

Thanks again guys! Love ya!

[Cobalt]

Sometimes you wonder how they even know how to turn them on, and when they do, someone should slap them up side the head and tell them to just leave it alone.LOL Sorry, so people that have no clue are the ones who think they know everything. :box: