Your HJT log shows no signs of malicious infections or anything else which would account for the problem.
Before performing any other troubleshooting steps,disable your firewall software. To make sure that you've entirely disabled it, go into the program's options/preferences, turn off the option to automatically start the program when Windows starts, and reboot. Simply choosing to disable the firewall once it has started often does not shut it down completely.
If the firewall isn't the source of the problem, we'll need to try to determine at what level the problem is occuring:
1. Open an MS-DOS box, type the following command, and hit Enter:
ipconfig /all
Do you see correct entries for the computer's IP address, the gateway IP address, and DNS server address(es)?
2. Again at the DOS prompt, type the following two commands and tell us the results:
ping www.google.com
ping 66.102.7.147
3. See if you can reach a site in your browsers by its IP address as opposed to its URL. Using Google as an example, enter the following into IE and Firefox's address bar, and let us know the result:
http://66.102.7.147
4. Here's a software fix you can try:
WinsockXPFix
5. Cruft built up in your Temporary Internet Files folder and other locations can cause browsing problems. Do the following "housecleaning":
- Reboot into safe mode (you get to the safe mode boot option by hitting the F8 key as your computer is starting up)
- Open Windows Explorer, and in the Folder Options->View settings under the Tools menu, select "show hidden files and folders", and uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" and "Hide extentions for known file types".
- For every user account listed under C:\Documents and Settings, delete the entire contents of these folders (but not the folders themselves):
Important: The following will delete the contents of all Temp folders. Given that, if any data that you care about is living in those Temp folders, you need to move it to a safe location now, or it will be erased along with everything else!
1. Cookies
2. Local Settings\Temp
3. Local Settings\History
4. Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
- Delete the entire content of your C:\Windows\Temp folder.
- Delete the entire content of your C:\Windows\Prefetch folder.
Note- If you get any messages concerning the deletion of system files such as desktop.ini or index.dat, just choose to delete those files; they'll be automatically regenerated by Windows if needed. Windows will allow you to delete the versions of those files which exist in sub-folders within the main Temp/Temorary folders, but might not let you delete the versions of those files that exist in the main Temp folders themselves; this is normal and OK.
- Empty your Recycle Bin.
- Reboot normally.
6. The following information in your HijackThis log header indicates that you are very far behind in your Windows and Internet Explorer updates:
Platform: Windows XP (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 (6.00.2600.0000)
Once you're able to get back online, you should use the Windows Update feature to at least bring yourself up to the most current level of XP SP1, if not SP2.
