Thread: I need a little help please ---

Here's the situation: My father has a small home office with a basic network. Two computers through a router through a DSL modem to the internet. One computer is a Macintosh running OS 10.3.9 and another is a Dell using Windows XP Professional. The service provider is BellSouth which I think is now under AT&T. About 6 months ago his Dell computer started having problems receiving email (it won't) and it will only send basic emails (no attachments or very small ones) without timing out and giving various warnings. The Macintosh has no problem sending or receiving email. Both computers have no problems sharing files and printing to network printers. Both computers use Mozilla Thunderbird . The Dell computer just started having problems without me making any changes in preferences/options/setup. The Dell computer doesn't have any problems using Gmail but he doesn't like using it and likes his original Mozilla setup.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any help

Justin

Do they both use the same e-mail account with Thunderbird?

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Do they both use the same e-mail account with Thunderbird?

Yeah ---- same account settings and server settings

It might be a firewall issue with XP ---- but I don't know why it started all of the sudden and did it coincide with the AT&T changeover.


Justin

The router conked out a coupled of days ago ---- I installed a new one today but this didn't improve the situation.

Justin

My ISP has a web-based control panel for my wireless router/modem that includes things like firewall and stuff - do you have anything like that Justin?

Anyway, since the Mac works OK I guess it's not a general firewall problem. Does the Dell connect to the net OK, or is web-browsing slow too? Is it only email that's effected?

It might be worth looking at your antivirus setup, but off the top of my head I'm not sure what you'd be looking for exactly.

I guess you have XP service pack 2 - it tends to download stuff and "upgrade" windows fairly frequently, so there's probably quite a few things that have changed in the last 6 months on the Dell. One option is to rollback XP to a save point 6 months ago and see if the email works properly again, but this perhaps is a last resort

This reminds me of Lou: "Windows Sucks.....







....whatever."

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

My ISP has a web-based control panel for my wireless router/modem that includes things like firewall and stuff - do you have anything like that Justin?

Anyway, since the Mac works OK I guess it's not a general firewall problem. Does the Dell connect to the net OK, or is web-browsing slow too? Is it only email that's effected?

It might be worth looking at your antivirus setup, but off the top of my head I'm not sure what you'd be looking for exactly.

I guess you have XP service pack 2 - it tends to download stuff and "upgrade" windows fairly frequently, so there's probably quite a few things that have changed in the last 6 months on the Dell. One option is to rollback XP to a save point 6 months ago and see if the email works properly again, but this perhaps is a last resort

This reminds me of Lou: "Windows Sucks.....







....whatever."

James.

Hey James -- what's up pardner?

Yeah --- I need to check out the Bellsouth/AT&T site (I have in the past but things might be new). I don't remember any kind of control panel .

The XP computer works just perfect on the internet, surfing and such

I think it is SP2 , but I believe I disabled updates (I think I did) --- as my father complained about getting messages. He only uses the computer for one (well two ) things ----- Autocad and receiving and sending email. He doesn't even surf the web on it. It's a work computer and I/he wanted to keep it clean and simple and being that he does't really know much about computers (he can handle Autocad just fine), he and I didn't want to have to continue handling updates and such.

When asked to download new messages, no warnings such as "unable to connect to server such and such" are shown --- nothing happens. I did get some "timed-out" messages when sending mail. It's a pain in the rear.

Justin

It's a pickle alright.

The only thing I can think of (and I'm no computer guru, so I'm floundering here) is that AT&T may have changed some mail server settings when it took over your old provider - sometimes they change stuff like security settings and such-like, or require you to add a security certificate, or change your quota allocation on the server...

But I dunno, because these things would generally pop up a message at you.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

It's a pickle alright.

The only thing I can think of (and I'm no computer guru, so I'm floundering here) is that AT&T may have changed some mail server settings when it took over your old provider - sometimes they change stuff like security settings and such-like, or require you to add a security certificate, or change your quota allocation on the server...

But I dunno, because these things would generally pop up a message at you.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

James.

I'm thinking something along this line as well -----but two computers, same account, same settings -- one works --one doesn't -------- I'm at the end of my knowledge as well --

Thanks James.


Justin

Did you confirm that the settings are still the same? I had a situation a few months ago where (somehow) the network settings magically changed. A quick comparison between machines, one that did work and the other that didn't, easily showed that a few numbers were off. Check it out and report back