I hope someone can help me with my problem as I have nowhere else to turn at the moment. I have a P3 650Mhz PC running 256 megs SDRAM. I'm running Microsoft XP Professional, McAfee Firewall & Virus Scan (Version 7.0) I have a Roadrunner High speed internet connection with a Toshiba PCX1100U cable modem and I've been running this for a long time without any problems until this past Thursday (turkey day). My internet connection slows down drastically and I often cannot even reach a website unless I refresh several times. I assumed this was a result of a virus, trojan, or a worm so I ran McAfee virus scan and nothing was found. I went to Symantec.com & ran a free virus scan. Again, nothing. I did the same with AVG and once again nothing was found, but my connectivity problem still remained. After running Ad-aware and Spybot S&D, I couldn't find anything that could explain my problem so I gave up & formatted my hard drive and reinstalled XP & all the windows updates, but my problem is still here. Every time I reboot the cable modem I can access the internet just fine for a couple of minutes, but then it slows down again. Same thing happens when I reboot my computer. I checked with Roadrunner tech support, but they weren't of any help either. Has my Internet Explorer been hijacked by something I can't find on my PC? Here's a list of running processes on my PC: IEXPLORER.EXE svchost.exe taskmgr.exe svhost.exe Mcshield.exe ctfmon.exe Avsynmgr.exe spoolsv.exe vshwin32.exe scchost.exe Isass.exe Services.exe Winlogon.exe csrss.exe smss.exe cpd.exe VSStat.exe explorer.exe Avconsol.exe system System Idle Process SYSTEM Can anyone help point me in the right direction? I know it's not a bad cable line as my internet lights stay lit on my cable modem & NIC the entire time...and RR Tech support said the cable is fine. I also tried XP's System Restore, but that didn't work either. I apologize in advance if my message posts more than once since I'm attempting to send this message through the same internet connection I'm having problems with.

I too use high-speed and sometimes lose my connection. But it still can be a problem on Roadrunner's end even if your light stays on. Here in my area, the server goes down all the time, when I say all the time, I'm talking at least 3-5 times a week. But, 2 miles down the road at my friends house, it never goes down. Even the tech support guys can't figure that one out. Also, if you reset your modem a lot, which I've had to do often, after a few times of doing it one right after another, the modem will will get to a point where even if their server is back up, you'll have problems because it's been reset so much that it tired out. This can last a few hours before it finally straightens itself out. Have you tried to look at the physical coonection of the coaxial cable to your modem? It can get loose and cause connection problems. So can a loose splitter if one is in use. Have the tech guy come and measure the signal your modem is recieving, if it is weak that will do it too.

This won't answer your question, but I notice you have McAfee VS 7.0. If you get achoice of updating to 7.03 when you go for your updates, don't. It caused me all sorts of problems, and McAfee is apparently aware of this. Also, don't buy the Security Center v.8. It is filled with problems, and they're aware of this too. If you did download v.7.03, your problem could possibly lie there, although I doubt it.

Thanks for your suggestions. After consulting with RR Tech support & performing a battery of diagnostics, RR techs concluded that my computer is okay and my internet connection is fine as well. Their tests showed that my Cable modem is beginning to fail and that's the reason for my connectivity issues. Unfortunately, they only rebooted the modem, reset the configurations & told me to give it a couple days to get back up to normal operation. If nothing changes after a couple days I was instructed to give them another call. As for the McAfee Virus Scan 7.0 / 7.3 issue... Would it be better for me to just switch to Norton Anti Virus? I have their 2003 software CD here (& 1 year free updates). I heard 2003 slows down system performance worse than McAfee does & that's why I haven't made the switch yet.