Computer/Internet Issues & TroubleshootingAnyone with questions about the terribly complex world of computers or the internet should try here. We will also try and help with troubleshooting any technical problems you may have with the forums.
Same here!! So It's not just my imagination! I think we'd better tell Danny or one of the Capt's (moderators). Said banner ad actually halted my system on one occasion. ..then..
windows 98 on an Ethernet network connected to the Internet via a Cisco 803. ISP is Avnet.
IE 6 but also Mosiac (yes I am old as well as sad) and Netscape. Only tried PPRuNe in IE6, I will try the rest sometime, but with enough people having a problem it seems to be at the server end rather than my end.
I know from reading other computer forums, there are problems with IE6. but whether your problems are related, I don't know.
Suffice to say, many are trying to change back to IE5.5, but I understand it is not a simple task, as changes have to be made to the registry. As I understand it, you cannot just simply overwrite IE6 with IE5.5
Pesonally, I still use IE5.5, which is possibly why I don't get your problem.
Sorry I can't shed any further light on the subject, but a search of any of the many computer forums, will no doubt throw up more information.
Being the Nice Bloke that I am I have checked that it is indeed a IEvn problem. In doing so I remembered why I like Netscape.
So, in IE, Virgin adverts makes the computer almost unusable, in Netscape I don't even notice.
It is still a bit of a problem as I would guess a very high percentage of users use IE and quite a few of those will just stop comming here if it is that bad.
This problem, that only affects a minority, is independent of the IE version, so it must depend on individual system configurations.
My system is unaffected. It's a Dell Dimension 500MHz, RAM is 256MB, Cache is 512KB and I use IE 5.5. There's lots of room on the Boot hard drive (HD).
If your HD is getting too full, the system may slow down because the Virtual RAM which is swapped out to the pagefile.sys on the HD can't cope. Banner ads put a premium on the processor and virtual memory. Your pagefile.sys should be at least the same size as your RAM.
Microsoft have a bit about this in their Knowledge Base and will advise you to check that some essential files such as Kernel32.dll, ctl32.dll etc may have been overwritten by a program you have added since Windows was installed. The result could be that the version you now have is older than the current MS version.
One way to check is to look at the file dates in your \Windows\System folder and see if there are any that have a date out of the ordinary. If you want to put back the Microsoft version there are instructions on how to do this on their site(provided you have the Windows disc). I'll post the instructions here if anyone would like me to. Or I'll e-mail files as attachments if that would be a help.
Disable 'play animations' in IE's 'Tools...Internet Options....Advanced' menu. It's under the 'Multimedia' section.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you prefer) this will disable all animations, including every other ad and the smilies etc. Is there something screwy in the HTML for that particular ad? No other ad has this effect.
Completely stops the problem. That $%^& Virgin ad that caused the problem doesn't get past the first screen display now. Wouldn't even know it's Virgin apart from the colour.
In that case there must be something screwy in the feed from/at Virgin's server.
No other ad causes this problem. Would it be possible to test it by caching/hosting the Virgin .gifs on the PPRuNe server for a week or so? Just as a test.
It's just that when every other ad & animation works fine, but one particular ad screws up people's PC, it strongly points to something at fault on the ad end of things. This problem seemed to happen to a range of PC setups & software so I can't see anything else in common.
As it is now, I get none of the ads (unless the 1st gif has the company name on it...) because I have to disable animations to make PPRuNe useable. Bit contrary to the whole purpose of the ads, I feel.
After the graphic has been downloaded your computer will have no connection to Virgin's server. Downloading the graphic from PPRuNe instead of VAs machines will make no difference (except we will pay for that internet traffic instead of Richard Branson)
One problem might be your antivirus software. Some of them, esp. if set to "check every file whenever it is accessed" can cause a huge slowdown. Dr. Solomon's, which in most other ways is one of the best antivirus progs. around suffers from this problem.
Are all the .gifs pulled from their respective advertiser's own websites? Also, do the ones with the same animation as Virgin's ad all use the same HTML?
We have two kinds of ads on PPRuNe - those directly aimed at the aviation community (VA, Ryanair, multiflight, ...) - I'll call thse "type 1" ads - and more general ads such as the BT and Dell ads - I'll call these "type 2" ads. Some forums have a type 1 ad at the top of each page, some have a type 2. Every forum also has a type 2 ad at the bottom.
All of the type 2 ads (e.g. BT, Dell computers etc) have the .gif stored remotely. We don't know where, and we don't care.
Some of type 1 ads have the .gif stored on our server, some are stored elsewhere. We prefer it if these .gifs are stored on an advertisers own website as then if they want to update it they can do so without requiring us to do anything. Type 1 ads all use pretty much the same HTML.
Virgin Logo slowdown 
I think we'd better tell Danny or one of the Capt's (moderators). Said banner ad actually halted my system on one occasion. 
Linear Mode
