messenger, sound, updating problems

(this was copied from another forum online I posted to since its a lot to type out)[/u]

I use FireFox and so far like 90% of websites work fine.
AIM works fine.
MSN works fine.

Yahoo doesnt connect to its servers.
Ad Aware/avast/Ewido/Spybot/ClamWin ALL cant update themselves


I havent touched anything at all. Everything was working 24hrs ago.

I havent installed anything new. Havent changed any settings.
Ran scans in SafeMode, nothing found.

I unset my DNS servers back to "Obtain IP"....still didnt work (so I re-typed in all that info).


Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on why this is happening and how to fix it? Googling it did me no good because I cant diagnoise the specific problem. Just *some* things done work, everything else seems to work fine.

so those same programs arent able to login still

I cant perform updates on my scanners, um SpyBot tells me:

Socket Error # 10061
Connection refused.

I googled that up and couldnt find specific information on what was different with my system VS other people's.

And just tonight, after having my machine turned off all weekend cause I was in Seattle, I turn it on and I have no sound. NOTHING.

Same problems, somethings work some dont....but now for some random reason, sound is fux0rd and I cant seem to figure this all out.



I reinstalled my file/printer sharing with XP to see if that was it, re-added ports 20-25 into the firewall.....nothing nothing and nothing.

Any freaking clues or ideas ANYONE??

PS - have already booted into SafeMode and havent been able to find anything at all cept the one thing that I'm pretty sure is a false-positive (BPFTP Server)
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Internet Explorer doesnt load any webpages at all

Mozilla (my main) loads 90% of webpages.
Webpages with sound dont work.
Movies/Music dont play.

But things like MSN/Yahoo/AIM all play sounds....yet XP, when booting, doesnt play sounds.

And what I did was enter in all my information (DNS, Gateway, IP, etc) into the network TCP/IP settings...was flying even better then before with the XP default settings of "Obtain IP Address".
Now all of a sudden, randomly, things are going weird on me.
So I took all that information out, rebooted, and its still having problems.

The only firewall I currently use, is the built in XP.
I also have avast installed, but I always turn it off. Only use it for AV settings.

To ME, everything looks like a virus of some sort, but I cant detect anything in normal or safe mode using Ewido/Avast/SpyBot/AdAware/ClamWin.

Oh yea:

1) havent tried reloading drivers yet, but gunna try that today

2) no, its YAHOO itself...not yahoo.com, thats totally fine. the messenger wont connect and log in + I googled possible yahoo messenger problems and read to uninstall yahoo and re-install it. did that, but when you try to re-install, it trys to connect online and same deal...that 10061 blocks it. So then yahoo gives you the option to download the full thing instead of through their little 300kb downloader...ok, tried that, installed, STILL wont log in correctly.

3) yea I tried doing a traceroute and everything looks ok, so I'm not sure what it is on my machine thats screwing me up or some setting I messed with but didnt realize. (but this problem stops me from doing 80% of what I normally do online, rather aggrivating)


PS - I can log into my yahoo mail no problem, its just the messenger and trying to connect to its server to log me in. Weird though because AIM/MSN work perfectly fine. its just my Yahoo that isnt happy (and all the above listed AV/Scaners that cant update)
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yup I've cleared all temp files, browser cookies/history/settings etc etc

I've cleared out a ton of crap, defrag'd my registry, turned off system restore and followed those instructions for viruses that install into the restore..

....still nothing seems to work.

I've thought about shooting my OS again and restarting...but I just did this not even 2mo ago and havent done anything bad since I reformatted (and I only reformatted because its been approx 3yrs since my last reformat).

I wanna try to figure this out incase it ever comes up again or I have some friends that go through this themselves. The only bad thing I may have done, is click on a bad profile on myspace...but I dont ever goto bad websites or in general click around all over the internet. I limit my surfing to approx 12 websites and a few programs.

Although I guess reloading XP Pro isnt a bad idea...I really wanna figure this out. Any other suggestions??

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reloaded sound drivers....still only nudges from MSN make sounds
nothing else really works...just sometimes critical system sounds

havent tried reinstalling Mozilla, cause it works perfectly fine
just like if I click my inbox through MSN, it opens explorer and it wont load. I type in a different website with iE...nothing. But FireFox works perfect (90% of websites, and no sound from any).

I have my XP Firewall always turned off, heh

Yes I have contacted my ISP and set my DHCP off and entered in my own gateway/residential/DNS etc etc. With it all entered in, problems loading yahoo messenger and some websites. Without it all entered in, same exact problems (doesnt make a difference).

My ISP doesnt block any ports, I've gone through weeks of back and forth about all that. Shoot, I told the sys admin I wanted ports 6889-6990 open, and also 20-25 (already added into my firewall setting just in case) and HE told me "they are open, I torrent things all the time! but I can help config your network settings for $60/hr..."

For the online scanners....already tried everyone I can think of (kasperky, symantec, mcaffee, nod32, etc etc etc) non of them load for me. the page sits there and lags/doesnt load.

my personal belief
If I cant figure out what the problem is and just resort to reformatting everytime I have a problem, what am I learning? Nothing. How can that help me if I run across the same problem again? I'd rather learn WHAT it is screwing me up and HOW to fix this so others can understand it as well (entering in relevant information to the internet's collective intelligence collection). Since I cant find anything specific about this but have heard from a few other friends not on this board the same thing, it'd be nice to post a BBS Forum about it on a few diff websites incase others have this problem as well. *sigh* I just cant figure this out though...one of the weirdest problems I've come across in 2yrs.