Problem w Some Websites -- Help!

[blackcat77]

For the past week or so, I've been unable to access some web pages -- for example, SFGate, any Washington Post page other than the front page and Capital Hill Blue.

It started out with these pages getting slower and slower to load but now they either don't load at all or it take literally five minutes for them to come up.

The odd thing is that the backgrounds of the page will load immediately, but the content never will.

I've deleted all my cookies, checked my settings (which I hadn't changed) and all the other obvious stuff to no avail. The same problem exists om my wife's computer to which I'm linked with a Linksys wireless home network.

On rare occasions, these sites will pop right up, but then a few minutes later, it's back to the same thing. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm running XP with the service pack, and IE6 with all the patches. Thanks in advance.

[earthman dave]

1. Try another browser, then you'll know if IE is causing it

I would suggest giving opera a go, other than that I can only speculate wildly - maybe the sites are getting heavy traffic? Maybe your ISP's network is suffering? Are there any flashing lights on your modem which would allow you to see if there's a big pause in the page loading or just a longish time between packets?

[blackcat77]

2. Thanks

I don't think it's traffic. In fact, I made a change -- check for update every visit instead of automatically -- and for the moment, it's working again. I also cleared my cache. I guess I'll have to do that every hour or something.

I tried using Mozilla Firebird (now Firefox) for a while but there are so many places that *need* IE to work properly that it just wasn't worth the hassle.

Maybe it's just one of those mysterious computer gremlins that comes along every now and then...

[starroute]

3. I think it may have something to do with the ads

That happens to me at times, and when I look at the task bar, it's always showing something like "servedby" or "doubleclick."

I've never figured out what to do about it though. It seems to clear up by itself after a few days.