Weird one - gibberish in Outlook and IE web forms

My system:  Dell XPS 400, running Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2002 Service Pack 2, with Internet Explorer Version 6.0.2900..., w/ 128-bit Cypher Strength; MS Outlook 2003, SP2;  Bellsouth DSL service.

 

Problem:  When I type my physical home address (street address, city, state, zip code) in either an online IE web form or in MS Outlook (2003, SP2), the letters show fine at first, but when I either refresh in IE, or send the email back to myself or to someone else, the letters in my street address, state, and zip code all come back as repetitions of the letters "MFE".   (Ex:  zip code shows as "MFEMF").  However, If I change only one number in the zip code or one letter in the other entries, this does not occur.  Because of this problem, I'm unable to order anything over the internet (which might actually be a good thing).  Also, the problem doesn't seem to occur in MS Word documents.

 

What's been tried so far: 

- Internet Options - General - Deleted all cookies, temp files (incl. offline files) and history items.

- Internet Options - General - Languages - English is only language showing (only keyboard type).

- Internet Options - Content - Clear SSL State

- Internet Options - Content - Autocomplete - unchecked all 3 boxes and cleared forms and passwords.

- Loaded both Spybot and Windows Defender and cleaned out all found spyware.

- McAfee Security Center shows everything okay.  Have run Virusscan and tested the firewall numerous times.

- Have checked computer with the Dell Support automatic check, and no problems detected.

- Purchased System Mechanic 6 with this new computer, in order to migrate my old computer files to the new one.  Since then, have periodically used System Mechanic 6 to maintain the new computer.

- Have religiously updated system from the Windows Update Website.

 

I've had this computer for about 2 months, but have only had this problem (I think) for about one month.  I have seen others with similar problems on different forums, but none exactly like mine.

 

Any other ideas out there?