Vista network and losing connection problem

[machineman9]

I am running Vista Home Premium. As of about a week or so ago, my computer has started to go a bit awkward with the connections.

When I sign in the network logo in the system tray has started to show up with a red X, or no connection, symbol. It affects my connections so I can't sign into things such as WLM or go onto Firefox. After about a minute or so (can be upwards of 10 minutes) it connects.

Also, when using Firefox is seems to have just started to stop connecting. I will click links and they won't load. Other internet things are fine, but I am then left having to reboot my computer. If I try to re-open Firefox I get the error that it is already open and to stop the process. The process cannot be stopped. It seems to also affect IE too. Browsers won't connect.

Checked with Spybot. AdAware kept freezing up. AVG is to scan tomorow morning.


Any ideas on what is going on? As I say, it's only recently started happening.

Cheers

[machineman9]

I've tried the following now, and to no avail:

System restore to 40 days ago.
Changing my router.
Roll-back (then test) and update network drivers.
Try a different ethernet cable.
Try about 3 different browsers.
Test pinging and tracerouting some IPs (which worked) but even though it was proved that I could ping etc my router, I could not connect to it through any browsers.
Checking my settings with those on a different computer in the same network. Wireless and wired settings don't mix... I didn't get far with that.
Restarted the networking device.
Run network diagnostics (they found no problem. They should look harder!)



Only way to get the browsers connection back is to fully reboot my computer. Logging off doesn't work, it merely shows all pages as 'Page cannot be displayed'.


Reckon it is a hardware error? Should I try investing in a PCI networking card to see if that causes any changes? I really have tried everything I can think of.