Weird happenings in IE8

[goombawaho]

I've got a clean XP computer that does something strange in IE8. If I type "

http://www.google.com"

in the address bar, it doesn't take me to Google. It gives me the result AS IF I had typed "

http://www.google.com"

into YAHOO search. A page of search results.

Also, sometimes typing a domain name in the address bar, it comes back with no web page and the address bar says "

http:///"

with three slashes. Other times, I get just an IE screen as if my internet was down.

This machine worked fine at my house after removing a boot sector virus and I'm sure it's still clean. I'm looking at the networking side of the equation first (replacing a really old router for other reasons) so we'll see if that works to change things tomorrow. But I'm just posting this in case the networking side of things is NOT the culprit.

It's a pretty simple network.
Comcast cable modem > router > 50ft. CAT5 cable > switch > computer 2
v v
v v
computer 1 Wireless Access Point

 

[goombawaho]

New router fixed the problem or so it seems. Very strange because other computer on the router wasn't misbehaving.