I bought a new HP laptop a few days ago for two reasons: 1. my old desktop gateway had windows 98 on it and was no longer working with all the new stuff coming out and yes it would have been more costly and out of my league of knowledge to try upgrading hardware on it etc... 2. We (my husband and I) both own ipods which we can no longer update music on and I just got a new kodak camera which needs xp or higher in order to run the software. I don't need the computer for the camera really, but we obviously do in order for the ipods to be worth anything (please note that we REALLY love our ipods lol) Anyway, we figured it was time for a new laptop (mind you on a limited budget!) Okay, end result was an HP dv6747cl. Quick run down on stats AMD Turion 64x2 TL-60, 2.0 ghz, and 250 GB hard drive. It's os is Windows Vista Home Premium. Now I like the notebook okay. I picked up vista quickly and thought it was going well. I installed the kodak software with no issues and got onto the internet to dl itunes. Enter my problem. It started dling the file at a transfer rate of 2.7 KB/ sec and said it would take over seven hours to complete the dl. I have dial up mind you and I know it's slow (it's what we can afford though

) but even my old computer wasn't THAT slow. So far other then some nifty features this new laptop wasn't much faster then my old desktop. After four failed attempts I gave up and contacted HP help and support (don't laugh!). I'm not what you would term a geek ^_^, but I'm fairly pc savvy. So the HP rep tells me it's not a problem with the notebook, but with itunes. Then says it's my internet connection, but that no matter what it's not the notebook. She also says she does not recommend dling itunes at all because my laptop might crash. I thought they had resolved that issue between itunes and vista but hey what do I know right? I then move to another minor issue I had (which I fixed by myself after but this is relevent) she tells me I have to uninstall this and install these three things she wanted me to dl off these sites. I go to sites, start the dls, boom they start timing out on me and I get disconnected. Okay I fixed that problem, but that tells me it can't just be dling itunes because it did the same thing and it wasn't itunes. So it's the notebook or my internet connection. (I think- I'm here for you to tell me if I'm wrong) So I go to netzero and get high speed dial up instead of regular dial up (and no I can't pay $30 a month for dsl) we connect the line directly to the box outside in case any old phone wires were interferring (like was suggested). It increased the KB/sec by one kb and this time it's up to 70% and hasn't stopped yet. That's still not the transfer rate where I'm told I should be though with dial up and this laptop is much better then the other. Also it's brand new there should be no issue, right? So, that's my story. My question is simple: Is the problem my internet connection or the notebook itself? Should I just return the laptop and cry

becuse we can't use our ipods? (Yes, i checked and I can return the laptop. Yes, I made sure that no unecessary programs were running in my tray. No, we can't return our beloved ipods.) Is there anything that I can do? I'd rather keep it and have it work, but it's a waste to keep it if itunes won't work because everything else I do on the pc I can do just as easily on my old pc and I didn't have to spend a grand to do it. I think that about covers it and I hope I included everything that might be relevent -- though it took forever. I thank anyone and everyone in advance for any help they can provide. It would be GREATLY appreciated!!! Thanks! -sk