The symptom sounds like a bad DNS.  If you try to go to:

 

http://70.84.70.85/hjt

 

Does it work?

 

If SO:

 

Assume you have NT/2K/XP system:  Start, Run, cmd, OK.

This should bring up a black CMD screen.  Type:

 

ipconfig /all

(there is a space before /all)

 

Look for where it talks about the DNS Servers:

 

 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 200.31.7.2

 

What do you have there?

 

IF NOT then

 

 

sigverif

(and then press Enter - the file signature verification program should start.  Press the Start button and let it run.  Do you see wininet.dll in the list?  What do you see?)

 

sfc /scannow

 

(This is the System File Checker.  It will check your system files and see if any have been replaced.)

 

(Did it find anything?  What?)

 

 

.....

 

Finally, go to a friend's computer and download hijackthis

 

http://tomcoyote.org/hjt/hjt199//HijackThis.exe

 

and Save it to the floppy A:\  Put the floppy in your computer and run it by:  Start, Run, a:\hijackthis.exe, OK.  Select Scan and Save Log and save the log to the floppy then move the floppy back to the friend's computer and post the log as a reply to this post.

 

 

 

Ron

 

You have a program on your computer called DNS Client which should be running.  You can see it with:

 

Start, Run, cmd, OK to bring up a black cmd screen then type:

 

net start

 

(when you press Enter you should get a list of services that are running on your computer.  Two important ones for the internet are DNS Client and DHCP Client.)

 

When you connect your computer to the Internet the DHCP client will get an IP address, Mask, Default Gateway and DNS Server address from the ISP.  You can see if this worked by typing)

 

ipconfig /all

 

(If DHCP is not working then you will get 0.0.0.0 as an IP address, if it is working but the DHCP server did not answer it will have an address that starts with 169.  In neither case will there be a DNS Server Address.  Copy this answer by hand and post it in a reply from another computer.  If you have a floppy you can save typing by

notepad

which will bring up a notepad file.  Go back to the IPCONFIG /ALL output and highlight it then hit ENTER.  Now go to the notepad and Edit, Paste.  File, SaveAs the file to the floppy as a:\junk  Then move the floppy to the other computer and Start, Run, notepad a:\junk.txt, OK and you should be able to copy and paste it to a reply to this post.)

 

(IF the DNS server is present, it can sometimes be the IP of a non existant server.  Either because the ISP has changed theirs or because malware has changed it for you. To see if the DNS Server is working, Type)

 

nslookup dell.com

 

(The answer of a working DNS server should end in

Name:    dell.com
Addresses:  143.166.224.178, 143.166.83.230)

 

(If nslookup works then your hosts file has probably been messed up by malware)

 

As for why it happened, malware is the usual cause but it could also be a bad spot on a harddrive, another service such as a firewall or antivirus, which did not start correctly or some other problem with your PC.  Hard to say.  For what it is worth a DNS Server converts the text names of sites to their IP address.  It's a bit easier for us humans to remember dell.com than it is to remember 143.166.224.178 which is the real address used by the internet.

 

Ron