Strange Tomtom.com issue on my netbook

[MerleOne]

Hi all,

I have a very strange issue with my netbook. I currently use a free wifi hotspot to connect to the Internet, and it went well until I tried to connect to www.tomtom.com. The website won't open. When I use another PC connected to the same hotspot, it just opens fine and quickly. When I retry several times on the netbook, it sometimes load the home page after 30 trials or so.

I have tried every single browser on the netbook: Opera, Chrome, K-Meleon, IE, and they all refuse to load properly www.tomtom.com.

Chrome does specify some error message :
Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): The server closed the connection without sending any data.

Any hint on where I should look to solve this ?

BTW, I have reinstalled Java & Flash, just in case... No effect.

Thanks for any help !

[Renegade]

Wow. That's esoteric.

Try pinging the site then adding a HOSTS file entry for it. That will help rule out DNS problems.

Next? Dunno. Drawing a blank there.

But don't waste time on installing/uninstalling. Components shouldn't cause problems there. (Unless they are low level.)

[rgdot]

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=19043fff689eff09&hl=en

Might be useful

[MerleOne]

Thanks to both of you.  I have already ruled out the DNS issue and proxy settings by trying the direct ip address (same result) and proxy settings are fine.  I see two directions I will investigate :
- trying to uninstall the web components of Avast 6
- Try to reset the IP settings that might have been altered by some utility.  Not much to loose trying that.

[MerleOne]

After removing all network components of Avast 6 and optimized my IP connection with the free Ashampoo Optimizer3, it works now !

Since I did both fixes, I don't know which one worked, but anyway, it seems fixed now.

[Curt]

Your avast! was probably the free or the "normal" pro version. Allow me to recommend that you test avast! Internet Security with "avast! SafeZone™". It is quite good.

http://www.avast.com/internet-security

avast! SafeZone™ opens a new (clean) desktop so that other programs don’t see what’s happening – and it leaves no history once it’s closed.

[MerleOne]

Your avast! was probably the free or the "normal" pro version. Allow me to recommend that you test avast! Internet Security with "avast! SafeZone™". It is quite good.

http://www.avast.com/internet-security

avast! SafeZone™ opens a new (clean) desktop so that other programs don’t see what’s happening – and it leaves no history once it’s closed.

Thanks.  I already use sandboxie and I think it's basically the same feature.  And you're right, I do use the free version.