A505-S6980 Internet Freeze

Question

We recently purchased an A505-S6980 with Windows 7 home premium edition.  It worked great for several  weeks but recently (since ~ Jan 24, 2010) has been performing poorly when using the internet.  It doesn't matter if the browser is Explorer or Firefox.  Initially the browser will work fine then becomes incredibly slow and eventually everything locks up (including task manager) and requires a power down to log out.  The system works OK in safe mode with networking.  The only software installed since purchase was Windows Office, PC Tools Spyware Doctor, iTunes, and Mozilla Firefox.  All these programs were installed well before the onset of our freezing problems.  Any suggestions on how to diagnose the problem (or fix it)?
Rhonda

Answer 1

When you wrote "It works ok in safe mode", do you mean that you booted up Windows 7
in Safe Mode, or that you used Firefox and EI8 in their Safe Mode option.
Now depending on your response from above you can go many ways.
If you started the web browser in safe mode then it means that both or one of
the software got corrupted and needs to be reinstall, or it means that the add-ons
used in one affects the performance that it makes it not respond. But that wouldn't
be the case with IE8 because it doesn't really have any add-ons that would make  it act
that way, unless one of it vulnerabilities is being exploited and makes its act like that.
If the add-ons are the problems on Firefox, then you can disable all, and the enable one by one,
or three or any number at a time and see which one causes the problem, and remove it.
Also try and delete the cookies and all data store on both browsers, see if that works.
You can try older versions of the browsers and see if that works better.
Have you scanned your hard drive for malware or viruses?
Also try Safari, the PC version, of the web browser, see if that also goes down or it works fine.
Hope this helps a little bit.