[JRMDC]

Good evening, all. My situation is as follows. Home systems, "base" desktop, connected to a router/cable modem. Two other computers, both laptops, accessing Internet via wifi. On one of the two laptops, for two days I have not been able to access any websites, via FF or IE. Fortunately the other laptop works so I can do things side by side, such as download files and USB them over to the problem computer. IE is v7, FF was v2; I have uninstalled and installed v3 as part of the process of figuring out what is going on.

FF cannot connect to anything and gives the standard message that it cannot find a page - "failed to connect". IE doesn't do much of anything at all - I am not a regular IE user so I cannot say whether this is the usual can't-find-a-oage outcome. The four bar icon in the system shows 4 green and when one puts the cursor on it one sees the usual 54 Mb/s, or whatever the units are, indicating the usual full speed connection. I can ping some URLs, others fail. The URLs that ping successfully do not work in the browsers.

I have gone through the geeks to go process for malware even though I suspect that sort of thing is not the problem - but I am open minded and certainly have no better idea. I have done AFT Cleaner, set a system restore point, run ERUNT, run MalWareBytes (BTW, I have had AVG suite on the computer at issue for some time, prior to that McAfee, since purchase). There is one MS "security update for MS .NET Framework" which i have yet to install - that popped up. I have rebooted. And I have done Hijack This - output below.

It appears that there may be occasional glimpse of the internet, as apparently AVG was able to do an update successfully at some point this morning when I was away from the computer. If I try a manual update, it cannot gain access. Oh, and Yahoo IM does not get access either.

The computer in question is a bottom-end Dell laptop, Inspiron B310, about $400 new. WinXP SP2, 50 gig HD, 1.25GB RAM, not used for games. Internet browsing is primary use, picture processing is secondary use, no notable changes recently, no software installed in last two days. Informational browsing, no online games particularly, my son plays some stuff but this is simple games from NASA or NOAA for young kits, not multi-user game stuff at all.

I am not a geek or techie but I have used computers since the mid-80s, have programmed in various languages. I have been fairly self-reliant and I have decently good instincts and intuitions with respect to computers. I am just completely stumped - without any ideas even as to what to pursue.

thanks

J

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