Road Runner here in NYC was recently attacked by a virus. Now I cannot connect to the internet. Tech support with Road Runner thought my problem was either a bad cable modem or that my McAfee Firewall which I have since uninstalled was creating a conflict somewhere in my registry. I have been running McAfee VirusScan Professional 7.0 and the included firewall. I don't think the problem is with my modem b/c currently I have my laptop connected to it and am able to access the internet, hence this post. Any help would be greatly appreciated to how I could resolve this registry conflict with the firewall or how I could get my PC to recognize my new IP address when I try to connect to the internet. Or any help with what the conflict actually might be?

Did you turn-off cablemodem, let it sit 20seconds or so, re-power then plug bum computer directly into the same socket with same cable that works with laptop? Probably not it, but worth verifying before delving into the system. If McAfee is fully updated (both scanner engine & signature (DAT) files) and you've performed a deep + heuristics=ON scan and it comes up nada, then I recommend you suspect your TCP/IP stack & settings. Before rebuilding the stack though, pursue the RR tech support suspicion of the McAfee FW leavings - also probably not it but again, worth doing because you'll perform a long overdue system cleaning in the process. For cleaning d'load System Mechanic (SM) from www.iolo.com & install it. Not sure how you'll get the file onto the P3/933 system: do you have a modem in that box? If so, RR offers dial-up connectivity for it's cable customers. Otherwise burn a CD somewhere. Recommend you use the following SM tools in the following order: "Files > Find/remove Junk ..." Use defaults EXCEPT - uncheck Files to Find > *.bak - IF you ever had the habit of including tildes in your filenames, then also uncheck the 3 "~" in Files to Find. - Removal Tab: I recommend "perm delete", but if you're feeling paranoid & have lotsa diskspace then designate an empty folder. At end of scan delete everything found. Close that tool. "Files > Find/Remove Broken Shortcuts" Use defaults EXCEPT also check the box "automatically scan for moved targets". At end of scan delete everything found. Close that tool. Do not use the other 2 tools under the "Files" heading. "System > Rem Invalid Uninstaller Info" First, jump out to OS's Add/Remove Applications applet (in Control Panel) & make triple sure nothing from McAfee shows there. Then pop back to SM and remove anything it shows. Close tool. "System > Clean System Registry" First, use the "backup entire registry" sub-tool. Then use all defaults for scan & remove everything it finds. Do not be paranoid about this tool: it is very solid. Finally, close out SM, empty your recycle bin, reboot. If connection to RR still fails then next task is probably rebuild Remove TCP/IP stack + Remove/Re-install nic + Rebuild TCP/IP stack - in that order. Typed out for now. Let us know how it goes. - Jonathan