Category: Geeks r Us
Last week, while I was visiting my dad, he started having a weird issue with his laptop, wich is running windows vista home basic, using AVG for his antivirus program. I'm not sure of what anti spyware he's using. Anyway, one morning, he was able to use his laptop and connect to the internet just fine. A few hours later, when he tried to get online, he got the following messages, problem loading page for firefox, and the page can't be displayed for internet explorer. When he ran a scan with AVG, it didn't find any threats. He tried restarting the laptop several times, getting the same results. He can connect to his network with the laptop, but he is unable to get online. We ruled out his router being the cause of his problems, because my laptop and both of our phones were able to connect and get online. Any ideas of what could have happened or how he can fix his system without having to take it in for repairs?
He could try going to internet options and resetting them.
If he has the message he is connected to his network, but has no internet access, he can also try using the Windows trouble shootter.
If all fails, then he's got a bug AVG isn't catching.
In that case he can run a stronger rescue tool, like Vipre Rescue. It gives instrudcions on how to use it, and is free.
It can be found online, but in his case will have to be installed on his system from a USB key or some sort of media.
You can download it, and put it on media he can run.
That's about it.
Buy a new computer or at least install Windows 10. Microsoft will stop supporting Windows Vista in April, and the computer will no longer get any security updates. Also when running Windows 10 do not use third party anti virus, just use Microsoft Defender.
That machine may not be elgible for an upgrade.
I'm not sure how old his laptop is because he got it from a friend.
Might be worth trying to clear the dns cache.
Press Windows+r for the Run dialog and type cmd followed by Enter to get the command prompt. Type the command "ipconfig /flushdns" without the quotes and press Enter to run the command.