I already have the Fasterfox extension. I use AVG and the Windows firewall. Have used these since the very beginning on all my computers. And I have DSL broadband.

Man your giving us pain with this one

Here are my final gambits -

1.Try the laptop on a different connection,with a different ISP,

That would rule out or rule in the ISP/DNS aspect.

2.Er......that`s it.

Your TCP setup on your system(s) control access to the ISP. It's the ISP that
routes your request of into the World Wide Web. As an example

Code:

$ tracert www.google.com
Tracing route to www.l.google.com [66.102.7.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router [192.168.0.1]
  2    10 ms    20 ms     *     cpe-75-82-128-1.socal.res.rr.com [75.82.128.1]
  3     9 ms     8 ms     *     gig11-13.vntrca1-rtr1.socal.rr.com [76.167.3.77]
  4    11 ms     9 ms     *     76.167.3.149
  5    15 ms    13 ms     *     gig1-17.lsanca3-rtr2.socal.rr.com [76.167.2.4]
  6    16 ms    13 ms     *     prt24.vnnyca2-rtr1.socal.rr.com [76.167.2.15]
  7    19 ms    20 ms     *     tge1-3-0.tustca1-rtr1.socal.rr.com [76.167.2.66]
  8    25 ms    22 ms     *     GIG2-0.LSANCA1-RTR1.socal.rr.com [66.75.161.157]
  9    29 ms    25 ms     *     te-3-2.car2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.71.36.73]
 10    32 ms    35 ms     *     ae-32-56.ebr2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.68.102.1.90]
 11    22 ms    33 ms     *     ae-1-100.ebr1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.132.5]
 12    40 ms    35 ms     *     ae-2.ebr1.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.69.132.9]
 13    31 ms    30 ms     *     ae-11-51.car1.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.68.123.15]
 14    90 ms    89 ms     *     GOOGLE-INC.car1.SanJose1.Level3.net [4.79.220.90]
 15    82 ms    87 ms     *     66.249.94.226
 16    92 ms    87 ms     *     216.239.49.66
 17   106 ms    88 ms     *     mc-in-f104.google.com [66.102.7.104]
Trace complete.

So my system(s) would be above line 1 which is my router
Line 2 is the ISP GATEWAY and always shows up in the ipconfig /all results.

Now then, EVERYTHING from line 3 on is in the WWW space and your TCP settings will
not have any effect on the outcome whatsoever -- so don't waste your time fussing
with it any more :0

If there are packet losses between line 1 and 2 -- be concerned.
Losses any further down the list are causes for complaints but NOT causes for
changing your hardware/software.

Okay jobeard, I didn't understand a bit of that! But I really want to thank you for trying to help. And Po Girl, you gave it your all. I think I'll just live with it until it makes me crazy, then I'll end up calling my DSL tech support which reads from a script. But at least they are local.