Weird Java? problem

I recently reinstalled my OS. Clean install XP Pro. For some reason ever since then I have had problems with web images and some javascripts. Every once in a while when I click on a picture file it just doesn't load. I don't get the red x, it just seems to start to load and then doesn't. Now with the java stuff, there are a couple sites I use often that just won't function on this pc now. One is Gamecast on espn.com. It is a java applet, and when I start it, it takes forever to load and then gives me a white screen saying I need to have Internet Explorer version 5 or higher installed, which I obviously do. So I went and downloaded Sun Java hoping it would solve the problem. It did for a couple sites, but not others (all of which function on my other pc). Also, this seems related, pages never seem to finish loading. Like half the pages I view, if they have a fair amount of images on them, never finish loading. The green progress bar just seems to stall halfway. I can see everything on the page usually, but it makes it impossible to view pages that have automatic refresh (like game update on espn). It can't automatically reload after 60 seconds or however long because it never finished the first time. I'm in eternal stall. I followed the steps the microsoft website suggested but it didn't seem to help and just really made it hard to get my video card straightened out again. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, it's a real drag. Thanks everyone.

edit: oh, and automatic download links don't work some of the time. Like on download.com if I click on the dowload link it goes to the next screen and used to load the open-save-cancel box, but now I always have to click on the thing that says 'if your download does not start automatically click here'

 

By "clean install ", you mean on a formatted, empty drive?

Do you have the MS Java VM?

Any popup stoppers, proxies, filters, or firewalls?