I recently switched from ADSL to CenturyTel cable internet access. Initially I couldn't access the internet at all from my main computer (Windows XP Pro, SP2 and all recent updates), even though I could get through fine on my wife's laptop on the same connection.
I finally sorted that out by assigning a static IP to my computer, but now I can only get to secured HTTPS websites. I have access to everything for about 5-10 minutes after starting or restarting the computer, and then regular sites refuse to load. I can get to any site with an HTTPS address, I can use Skype, I can ping google.com, and sometimes I can get through to other sites by changing the address to https and accepting a bogus certificate.
I have checked all my internet settings and proxy configurations (no proxies). I have disabled all firewalls. I have done ipconfig /renew and winsock resets.
There are some hints out there in forum-land that this is a Port 80 problem or VPN related, but I could really use some guidance on this. Networking is not my strength-----but I'm learning!
Thanks for any help you might give.