Ok, I have spent all day searching, Googling, reading, and attempting to figure out what is wrong, and cant seem to figure this out. I am on Windows XP Home Edition and have Verizon DSL base DSL plan. It seemed to work fine when we first got it 3 weeks ago but starting about 2 weeks ago it seemed to get worse and now its just horrible. I have done everything Verizon recommends including:
checking all filters, connections, etc
running defrag, cleaning up cache/history
resetting modem
rebooting laptop
After two calls to them we have tried running in safe mode, disabling the firewall, and removing AVG altogether. They seem to think that after all this its a PC issue and not on them. At first both techs were reporting issues on their end, but after being on the phone a certain amount of time they seemed to conclude it was not an issue on their end. The last guy suggested a port being used by some sort of malware/virus, etc. I have ran AVG, Spybot and Adaware but come up with nothing.
I dont do any file sharing (limewire, mule, etc) I try not to click on anyhting I shouldnt, and I try to keep the computer maintained with regular clean up and decent protection. It just seems odd the DSL seemed to do ok at first but now basically doesnt work at all. It wont even finish a speed test on Speakeasy, does the download but wont start the upload, and Speedtest.net is where it shows a 4k bps if it even works at all.
How do you check/monitor ports? Would a hijackthis report help? Am I missing files or registry?
I greatly appreciate anyones insight on this