Really weird browser problem, need help!!!

[MikeMoss]

Hi everyone.

I have a problem that is driving me crazy!
I had a cable connection (Comcast) hooked up today. Broadband finally!

I have two computers, a Dell XPS desktop and a Dell XPS laptop.
Both computers are less then a year old and run Windows XP Media Center Edition.
The laptop is wireless, the PC is hard wired.

I get a good connection, 100Mbs on the PC and about 54Mbs one the laptop.

Ok the PC words fine. Hooray!!!

The problem is with the laptop.

I don’t have any problems getting online.
But once I am on, there are web pages that I just can’t get to.

For instance I can open ABE Books, but I can’t open Amazon.com.
I can’t open the Microsoft Update page but I can navigate without problems in Ebay.

I can open many pages very quickly, but when I hit a page like Amazon it just sits there and nothing happens. No matter how long I wait it never happens, clicking reload doesn’t help, on some I get the “Server can not be found” message. Two examples are the Comcast homepage and the Juno Homepage.

Here is where it gets really weird. I have both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer installed on the computer. The same thing happens in both browsers.

This is what I have tried so far; I have uninstalled and reinstalled both Browsers.
It’s late so I am going to try running Netscape tomorrow.

I have turned off the McAfee firewall and enabled the Microsoft firewall.

I have turned off both firewalls.

I have run a virus search with McAfee, and a complete adware search with spybot.

I have removed all the registry errors with Registry Mechanic while the browsers were uninstalled.

I don’t know what else to try except starting all over and reinstalling Windows.
I thought I would take a shot here and see if anyone has any ideas before I go that far.

Mike
.

 

[smah]

The sites that you mention could possibly be secure sites. If this seems to fit the pattern, check out the other threads liked at the bottom if this one:
Can't log into secure sites or connect to https sites thread608-1111837

 

[MikeMoss]

Hi smah

Thanks for the info.

The problem has been resolved.
When the installer came the first day the modem he installed would drop the connection at random intervals so he came back yesterday and replaced it. When he did this the laptop started to work normally.

I don't have any idea why the modem would affect the connection to only some web sites and only on the laptop, but it did.

He didn't have a clue either.

Last night the connection stopped working altogether on both computers, but this morning they are both up and running again. We were in the middle of a blizzard do maybe the weather had something to do with it.

I have been using computers for a long time but this is the first time I have ever been able to get a cable connection so this is all new to me.

Mike

 

[cupid11213]

When modems are bad, they can cause som many weird issues, also worth looking at modem drivers. But happy to see you got it working fine.

Luis.

Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, while others wonder what happened.