Hi Guys,
I really hope you can help me with this as i'm going mad trying to find an answer.
It's quite a story and i will try and keep it short.
I have a HP laptop, and the operating system is windows XP, and it works on Service Pack 1
I have been using the laptop and AOL for the past 6 years and have NEVER had any problems until last Friday. I always just logged on through the AOL software but when i logged in on friday it just stalled at stage 3 checking password, and wouldn't connect.
I phoned AOL to see if they could help and they ran me through a lot of checks, modem and connections and stuff. In the end i was advised to uninstall all aol software and re-install which i did but this didn't help. I phoned AOL again the next day, and they advised that they thought the AOL software was corrupt in some way and i should connect through DiallBB, which is just a bridge that establishes the connection and then use Internet Explorer to surf the net, which all seemed fine. ( Just to let you know that i never used to use IE before.)
However everytime i try and view ANY web page it looks like it is connecting to the website as per the info at the bottom left hand corner ( connecting to i.e. www.bbc.co.uk) but the status bar just seems to stop after 3/4 green dots and the page will eventually say ( after a long, long time) that this page cannot be displayed.
My connection is fine it's running a 6mb I have tried other tests, like pinging websites in the command prompt and checking the connection and modem but NOTHING seems to be working. Everytime i check a website for ideas of what to look for it doesn't seem to fix it.
I have deleted all the Internet temporary files and the cookies, but nothing.
I have been onto a few sites and ran my computer through numerous checks, TCP/IP deletion and re-establish and similair.But nothing.
I'm not the best with computers but i know the basics and i really dont know how to fix it.
If any of you guys could help, or point me in the right direct i would really appreciate it.
I just dont know what else to check or if i'm mising something very obvious. Also, it is very hard to know what to check when you cannot get on line.
Also, when i pinged any website i get replies back so i take it the connection must be fine.
Thanks for any help in advance!