All right, this problem has been plaguing me since October of last year.

I have this problem where randomly, my Internet will just die. But the thing is, only websites stop working. If I am connected to MSN, YIM, AIM, IRC etc., I stay connected to them and I am able to talk on them... but I am not able to connect to these services if I am not connected to them when the websites stop working.

This happens on any provider. My home provider, school provider and when I was at my brother's house. I'm using a laptop and the connection is wired broadband.

I know it's not the providers because this doesn't happen on my desktop at home and the desktop at my brother's house.

I've tried switching out the ethernet cords with no luck.

It also happens when I attempt to use a USB Ethernet converter.

I have no idea what's wrong, does anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

Thanks in advanced.

 

I'm assuming you tried disabling the wireless and just using wired internet on the lap top?

 

Yeah, Did that a while ago.

 

Hmm, that's weird. Did you try uninstalling the wireless card drivers, and reinstalling them?

 

No, but I have no idea how to do that, lol.

 

try http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsockxpfix.html always works for me.

 

Ah, but does that work for Vista?

 

Vista....lool thats the root of your problems. None the less, you might want to try typing " netsh winsock reset" in CMD. Basically resets your winsock to default settings.

 

There's your problem. I dual boot vista and ubuntu, and have the same exact thing happen to me whenever I run vista. Seemingly at random, webpages seem to stop loading. All external programs work, but browsers down work for some reason. When I boot into ubuntu the net works fine. Webpages load, everything's good.

 

Really? Mmm. My friend also has Vista but he doesn't have this problem.

 

It happens to me too. I just wait a few minutes and it works again, thought it was firefox at first since I was still connected on irc. I'm on XP and I'll try the fix.

 

That was happening to me, on XP, but very consistently, maybe 3-4 times a day.

As a last result I reinstalled XP, and that fixed it, but again, you might want to use that as a last resort so you don't have to back everything up.

 

Hm, have you run the standard battery of tests? Sounds like a form of a trojan I've seen before. Disables your using webpages so it can tap into IRC. It was ansty little bug and its about a year old but you may have downloaded it by accident. Run the usual tests, anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, and scan your registry for problems, I usually use registry mechanic for that but take your pick. Let me know if that improves it at all.