Firefox fine, IE not working proper

Hi guys and gals !

My 1st post, greetz to everyone !
As a short notice I've been around computers since 386DX so I know all the usual stuff and it won't apply here. Trust me, read down...

This is the wierdest problem ever, realy - ever.

The 1st encounter was when I started downloading some links from rapidshare. At some point RS on firefox told me this and that about something I can't recall regarding free DL but I was still able to download the free links on IE. Then IE went funny. The downloads went fine up to about 0.5MB downloaded and then the speed would decline until the DL hung up. I disregarded this problem as RS was never important for me. God save the torrents...

At this point I was running a perfectly healthy bug free XP SP2.

Right, so now I got myself a nice new shiny 0.5TB external drive and decided to clean the whole lot, backup and reinstall XP. Bad move. Install disk is original btw (from the office ), XP Pro, SP1 included. So no piracy.

Reinstall was a peach, up to the point of GFX drivers (I use Omega for this old ATI). Trying to go to theyr page with IE it just hung with page name, background color and status bar in "Opening.... "

Went for Firefox, got the page but when trying to DL it I get the same symptoms as before with rapidshare, DL just dies.

Wierd thing is that at some point I managed to DL both of them via IE - after calling ISP tech support. The guy at the other end was doing something he called changing my cable modem frequency.

Cool beans, I now have firefox and guess what - it works all fine. No problems at all DL anything at all ! IE is still the same, I try to DL something not depending on where or when and the DL dies. Same thing with windows update, can't get MSN or anything cause it isn't able to DL SP2 for instance.

I know, I know - just use firefox then As I said, I know my way around but I'm no power user and would like to use IE for windows update and as a backup if all else fails with my friendly fox.

Thanks if anyone can help !

//g0nz

 

Ha! Yea, my first computer was a 286. I thought I was hot stuff when I got a 386DX2 until it crashed and burned. Anyway...

Have you made sure your system is free of spyware, viruses, etc.? I would remove all traces of IE and install IE7.

 

I don't think SP3 is the solution here as I have had SP2 on it running just fine with no problems. Downloaded it with firefox before and no cure.

Been realy busy with work so this has been in the background.

No problems with viri or spyware etc. as the next thing after I installed firefox and SP2 was to install virus and spyware protection. This was a few days after my OP, now I have my system working as it did before reinstall just don't have a working IE lol. Not that I'm missing it realy I will give IE7 a shot tonight...

Cheers !

//g0nz