I'm helping a friend out with an odd problem that he is having. First, he's on Windows XP Home.

The problem is not just specific to Internet Explorer (version 6 is what he has), but that's where it's most obvious. When he first reboots the computer and comes on, it's fine. He connects and is going extremely fast (cable modem). After about 5-10 minutes, it won't surf though. It's LIKE port 80 is just blocked...We can ping websites just fine. I can connect him through a proxy, just not a proxy on port 80..proxies on port 81, 8080, and 3128 I have tried, and they all work. I've tried connecting AIM through port 80, it won't work. But AIM connects through port 8080 and 81, as we did those as a test.

I went into network connections, properties for tcp/ip, and there is no filtering for blocking ports. The modem itself is not blocking the ports, as we have switched out the modems and that did not help..and the modem WORKS at my house not his, it has to be the computer.

There is no router, no firewall, no anti virus..he does have these things but we shut them all out.

There has to be some way to make internet explorer AUTOMATICALLY use port 8080? Because the only way proxies work is because our computer requests information to the proxy on port 8080, then the proxy requests the information port 80 and sends it to us from port 8080..our computer cannot directly go to the 80.

Even when i try to telnet to a website on port 80, won't connect..

We've installed opera, and netscape, same problems..they have sense been uninstalled.

Using a proxy isn't a huge deal, except for the fact that they extremely slow down the connection and block sites some times, and are not always up.

Does anyone have any suggestions? i've suggested we re-do the computer, but my friend has a band and a bunch of *censored* he is scared to format and possibly LOSE. If all else fails we will begin backing up information and reformat, but we want to be sure to exhaust all of our options first.

Thanks for any help you can lend us.http://support.wayne.edu/allwsu/proxyserver/explorer_win.php