No longer connecting to websites - Please help.

Hi!

Please, can someone help? I have a second computer which, for old-gaming reasons, I keep as Windows 98. I occasionally want to go online, but it's mostly offline. When I go online (ADSL), I merely unplug my primary PC connection at the phoneline and replace with my Win 98 PC modem line. The connection is working well with my primary PC, so it's not a line problem.

When I connect via my second PC, it connects to the internet fine, and I can connect to any websites, Google, Tech Support Guy, etc.. However, even though it remains connected (shows as being still connected in the TaskBar - bytes in and out, etc.), after around 4 minutes I can no longer load up/connect to ANY website at all and the loading bar just hangs until it eventually times-out. This happens every time and, each time the only way to get it back is to boot the PC. Disconnecting from the internet and reconnecting doesn't do it.

I managed to download a new version of Ad-Aware SE personal ONLY by using Getright to download it in two separate connection sessions as I lost the website connection half way through, but, with Getright, was able to RESUME. I've run SpyBot Search & Destroy and it found nothing significant (just one tracking thingy - TagASaurus). Ad-Aware found nothing.

My usual next step in problem situations is to run Housecall (Trend Micro), but I can't stay connected to the website anywhere near long enough to do this.

I'm also running Avast! antivirus and ZoneAlarm. I've tried disabling both, but it didn't help. I've stopped all background programmes running as well using MSCONFIG.exe.

I'm not particularly technically knowledgeable beyond what I've mentioned above, so if you can keep advice as non-technical as possible I'd really appreciate it. But, please help! I'm really stuck on this one.

If it's not a hardware problem then, it appears to me, it's a virus as I'm not actually losing the broadband connection - just getting this 'connecting to site' hanging situation. If so, what can I do?

Thanks.

eggplant

 

Can anyone help me with this please? I apologise for nudging it up if there's a queue.

 

Nearly nine days and no help offered. Hmm! Is this such a daft question, or is it just a horrible one?

 

Since no one seems to have a fix. You might try this utility. I haven't used it, but don't know of a fix for Windows 98.
ReConnect