OK this is the weirdest thing....
I noticed just recently that at certain websites, internet explorer downloads each individual items (logos, pictures, etc) at a slow rate where before, the page would load instantly. Also, some of the pictures come up as red x's where before it worked and on AOL it works perfectly. I remember changing a setting but I don't remember exactly what that setting was except that it had to do with Multimedia of IE. I already did a system restore, changed IE settings to default, and repaired IE but nothing worked. I've searched for this problem over the net and a few of the topics says it's a registry error or has to do with the encoding of the page. Any suggestions?

That's usually a result of trouble at the website's computer, not yours. But there are a few other things which could be slowing things down:

- Your cookie and browser security settings.

- Your antivirus software.

- An unusual screen format (requiring the images to be converted to be displayed).

- Not enough internet cache space.

- Doubleclick.net - an adware site which pays webmaste3rs to get its ads on web pages - often oversubscribes its service. During peak activity, the Doubleclunk server can't keep up with the ad requests, so your browser times out waiting for it. Since the ad is usually at the top of the page, the browser asks for it before asking for the images.

The only cure for this last one is to badger the website owner to get rid of Dibbleclack.

It could also be that your ISP is rejecting the images for some reason.

If your internet cache is too small, the photos will not open.

Hi,

I also had that problem recently and I found that the "View" of the page was incorrect. For every page that loaded incorrectly, I went to "View", "Encoding", and then selected either "Western European (Windows) or "Western European (ISO)"...whichever did not have the black dot next to it. The page would then reload and all the pictures would be there.

This did not cure the problem in the long term but it did allow me to reload and see the page correctly. "Auto Select" did not help.

I'm having the red X problem as well. I know for a fact that the reason is "- An unusual screen format (requiring the images to be converted to be displayed)." I don't know what to convert the image to OR what to convert the image from. The photos were sent from my cell phone to my e-mail and then saved to my computer, but when I try to open the files, they do not work; I get a red X instead. Is there any chance of turning this Red X into an image?

Try increasing your internet cache. If the browser cqn't store the picture, it can't display it. And today's photos are huge megabytewise.

I have been noticing that on some web pages , some of the graphic ads have the red x as well as a "this page cannot be displayed" in two or three places on the page. This has been happening for the past few months on a dell 5100 one and half years old. Sorry if this has been addressed, as I am a newbie to the site. I have increased the cache to 500. Is this enough?

winsock xp fix did it!!!!!

I would then proceed to scan for spyware.

Winsocks does not get corrupt just by accident.