Shew..now that this page has finally loaded, I can explain my problem and hope you wonderful people here can help me.

This has been going on since about Saturday. I can connect with my DSL. I have already called the DSL place and they said everything is fine there. So, I know its not the connection or the servers, but as soon as I connect to the internet I go and click on IE and open it up - it TAKES about 15 mins for a page to load, my pages use to load in 10 seconds. My Windows LIVE Messenger WON'T connect, but If I use the Windows Messneger that comes with the computer(same as MSN) it will. Also, when I go to download something like a messenger or firefox it takes about 6 hours for it to download and then once it gets DONE, it tells me its not a vaild Win32 app.


I have tried unplugging my modem and plugging it back it. I have ran ad-aware and Avast!. I talked to the guy that built my computer(my sister's best friend) and he said it sounded either like a connection problem OR an Explorer problem.

I tried to download HijackThis to see if I could get a log for you all, but it won't let me download anything. Please help. I am desperate for anything.

What VERSION of windows are you using? - - - - - I am using Windows XP Pro
How does your dsl modem connect to your computer? - - - It connects through and ethernet cable.
What version of Internet explorer are you using? - - - - - IE 7.0

Also, something I might add. A couple of months ago, I got this little BLUE star ( I call it the blue star of death) in my taskbar saying that my computer might be at risk. It's from Microsoft. Something about my copy of Windows is not legal - would this be causing my IE to act like this?

Thank you for your time,
Sarah Sounds like spyware... try downloading and running , and see if it finds anything. You can also try downloading and running [url=http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html]SpyBot Search and Destroy.

You could also try re-installing Internet Explorer, but I doubt that is the problem.I will give it a try. I can't download anything, because it takes forever, and then it says it's not a valid Win32 application. But, I will give it a try.