Internet problems...Pages won't load

[GrimReality]

I know this seems like an odd place to ask this, but I've been around forever and I know some of you guys really know your stuff.
I also really have no idea where to go to get help.
Anyway...
My computer at home started acting up about a week ago. When we connect to the internet(a lowly 56k connection), it says we are connected, but then won't load 9 out of 10 pages we want to load. Even Google will only load up sometimes, but then if we try to search for something nothing happens.
No error messages come up, just a blank screen. It even says "done" in the lower left-hand corner.
I wonder if we have a virus or sonething, but cant load up the right pages so I can check this.
Anyone ever have a problem like this? Or know how I can go about fixing it? ANY help would be appreciated.

[Angelo]

Sometimes web pages take a long time to render if the machine is under heavy load.  The first thing you should do is make sure the pages aren't loading, by waiting a solid 10 minutes or so after it says "Done" to see if the browser is just lagging behind.  (I've seen this behavior a lot on Internet Explorer 6, for some reason.)

If the page eventually renders, you have performance issues.


Another thing you can check is if the page is getting transmitted.  You can do this in a few simple steps:

1) open a command prompt window. (Start -> Run -> "cmd")
2) Open a connection to the web server:
   "telnet google.com 80"
3) Get the root page:
   "GET /"
   (The connection will close once the transfer is done.)

If you see any message from the server other than "200 OK", you probably have network issues.

[GrimReality]

Thanks for your response Angelo. I'll try your suggestions.
We actually use Firefox, not IE, but neither one of them will work.
Last night nothing would load at all. It says I'm connected, but all I'm getting is blank pages. My wife is not happy, and I'm not good with this kind of stuff. Ask me to fix the plumbing or hammer some nails, I'm good. Ask me to fix a compter problem and I just stare blankly at the screen, hoping it fixes itself somehow.