Computer Fixin’: AOL 9 Crashes

I got a call to fix the computer for a kid whose computer kept crashing whenever he started AOL 9.0 on his windows XP machine. I figure, piece of cake, it’s gotta be MSBlast or welchia; just need to apply the security patch and make sure the worm is cleared off.

After about a half hour of going through all the prerequisite steps to do this, I’ve got a problem: the system is still restarting whenever it goes online. Really, just as soon as AOL connects and begins to authenticate, it crashes, hard reboot style. No such luck, but I did manage to figure out the problem….

I had been recommending to the kid (I call him kid because he was like 16) he should have a firewall and an antivirus program, and he said he did — PCCillin. I see that it has a basic firewall built in, but you can’t really configure it — I was hoping to block port 125, which MSBlast uses to make it’s way onto your computer.

I go through and try a ton of different things, disabling start up items, changing network settings, no love. About 15 reboots later, I’m just about ready to give up — I’ve asked him if he’s considered using something besides AOL, because, let’s be honest, AOL sucks, anyway.

I decide to try one last thing. I manage to have the Task Manager open at the same time as AOL is dialing out, and I see that one process is hogging 99% of the processor time. What is this process? PCCillin’s firewall service.

I could have just disabled the service, but I decided just to uninstall the entire PCCillin suite — who uses PCCillin anyway?.

Lo and behold, after restarting I launched AOL, dialed out and no crashy!

Another small victory for computer techs everywhere.

5 thoughts on “Computer Fixin’: AOL 9 Crashes

  1. u idiot. get the hell out of NYC! have a good one franky!

    11:40 ABC news reports U.S. receives information about credible and imminent threat to NYC

  2. Hi Mate, I had a similar problem with Aol8 and pccillin 2002. It would connect once then when you try to reconnect it would hang. So I binned pccillin and used Norton 2003, perfect!!. I take it that pccillin and Aol dont like each other.

  3. I agree about PCCillin, we had it on our computer and it kept crashing, just like you when we uninstalled the program abracadabra everything was fine and dandy !!!!! :o) glad it wasnt just us who had to suffer at such a remarkable anti virus program!

  4. Did you try disabling or uninstalling the EZ-trust virus scanner? That’s what I would try first.

    See if there’s a newer version of everquest or a patch for it. Try using an older version of AOL.

    If you’re behind a router, do you have to use AOL? Maybe get a router (linksys makes one I think, also the Apple Airport) that does the AOL authentication for you, so you don’t have to run AOL at the same time as EQ.

    Good luck!

    josh

  5. I also find that AOL frequently crashes the computer. Sometimes, it’s on authentication; Other times, it’s when I sign off or exit. Very annoying. I’d switch from AOL in a heartbeat if I didn’t have ~300 addresses stred in it.
    Anyone have a reliable fix? I’m not using PCCillin or EZ-trust.
    I’m on Windows XP and have 2GB RAM.
    Thanks.
    Bob

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