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.