Dial Up=PCFreezes

[pinnochio]

For the last three months, this once bug free freezes
almost always upon disconneting/hitting start get to shutdown.
I do notice a bogging down while online at times, then
the almost always pc freeze after disconneting. Clue:
Before I could click IE, click only one 'do you want to
work offline' away but NOW, Seven of these boxes come up.
Click, click, click, click, go away ! which tells me that
somewhere in windows 98se, there are now Six extra, unwanted
commands. Question: how do I find those or how else to
approach this problem? Would reinstalling DUN be a possible
remedy? I run adaware, spybot, and hijack this every 6 weeks
so its now spyware.
-P

[kiosk]

There is a background program running on your system that wants to connect to its main server periodically to download updates. Most likely you have a freeware software that displays banner ads. Such (banner) programs are ICQ, GetRight, Kazaa and many, many more. Other programs that contact their main servers for different reasons are WinMX (checking for software updates) and BOINC client for SETI (cumbersome program trying to download new workunit data).

Some of these programs will go haywire if they cannot connect to their servers. Say, BOINC for example, it will lock up entirely for several minutes if a dial-up connection is absent.

Which is the last piece of software you installed? Many programs exhibit such behavior, but I'd keep my eye on ICQ and Kazaa.

[david eaton]

The symptoms you describe are almost certainly caused by some form of malware.

Please download http://tools.zerosrealm.com/hjt.zip
Copy it into its own folder, doubleclick HijackThis.exe, and hit "Scan".

When the scan is finished, the "Scan" button will change into a "Save Log" button.
Press that, save the log, do Ctrl-A to Select All, and copy its contents here. Most of what it lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.