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NuGG 32 Junior Poster

I have been experiancing slow/intermittent browsing in IE and firefox since the recent KB976002-v5 (browserchoice.exe) hotfix. My pop3 email accounts also time-out when sending/recieving.

I have reinstalled both IE and firefox. Specified DNS Servers on the router and problem PC. Fixed all registy errors, and performed a deep clean including cookies and tempory files. I have also changed workgroup and PC names, and IP addresses. I have tried many times with all firewalls and AV turned off.

Nothing seems to make any difference.

Anyone had any simalar problems? Im open to all suggestions, -I cant find any reason why this is happening!!!

Cheers.

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Dani AI

Generated

Symptoms like slow/intermittent page loads in multiple browsers plus POP3 timeouts point toward DNS resolution, the network stack (Winsock/LSP), or an intermediate filter (router/AV/mail-scanner) rather than the browser binaries. A fast isolation check is to compare raw-IP reachability with name lookups and measure where the delay happens.

ping 8.8.8.8 -n 6
ping google.com -n 6
nslookup google.com
nslookup google.com 8.8.8.8
tracert google.com

If the IP pings are fast but hostnames are slow or fail, focus on DNS. If both are slow, focus on the local network stack, NIC, or upstream link.

Reset and simple remediation (run from an admin command prompt, then reboot):

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
netsh winhttp show proxy

Also test browsers without add-ons (iexplore -extoff) and use a fresh Firefox profile (firefox.exe -P). Test POP3 connectivity with telnet to rule out client/AV interception:

telnet mail.example.com 110

Advanced checks and notes: inspect the Winsock/LSP catalog (netsh winsock show catalog) for non-Microsoft entries; update or reinstall NIC drivers; try a different NIC or boot another PC on the same network to see if the issue is per-machine or network-wide. If multiple devices are affected, check router DNS/firmware or contact the ISP. If the problem began immediately after KB976002 and no other fix helps, temporarily uninstall that update for testing (Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Show updates -> locate KB976002 -> Remove, then reboot). If deeper analysis is needed, capture DNS/TCP timings with a packet trace (Wireshark) to pinpoint slow queries or retransmits.

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