I would be curious about how many bytes ccleaner removed, if you remember. Ccleaner mostly just removes temporary files that your browser has saved into folders from every webpage you load ... and cookies too. Nearly all webpages and their graphics & scripts are saved 8 duplicated into cache folders. They are saved so your internet connection doesnt have to download the same pages over & over as you visit those sites again unless changes are made on the page. Then they save the changed pages into different cache folders.. adds up to a whole lot of pages for the browser to keep track of over time. Often the database files & folders/files in the cache ..get mixed & screwed up. One thing I might first try, after running a full virus/spyware scan, would be to download the current version of firefox & once that is on the computer, uninstall firefox. Then reinstall it after a restart. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

oh yep my bad I was talking about my desktop have never done one on a laptop sorry. do you by any chance have McAfee on your pc? I found many many of my problems I had been having on my pc some to do with connection issues were all remedied when I completely removed McAfee. OH WAIT hold the phone you said about a week ago would that happen to be right after you got the latest MS updates??? Because that was one of the problems some were having after getting the updates! If it was right after patch Tuesday then I would bet it is one of those updates. Here is the link to the thread about that over on BBR forums. Loss Of Connection After Installing Windows Updates Oct MS Updates this latest batch of updates also had a problem with some versions of zonealarm firewall. If it did start at that time I think I would do a system restore to a date prior to that and see if that works, then you could go to the windows update page and try getting only the critical updates one at a time to see which one is the culprit and not get that one, once you know the KB number you can just remove that particular one from add remove. If you need system restore directions just ask it is super simple and reversible.

It could be a problem with your provider, or it could be the quality of the cabling that comes into the house. I really don't think it's our cable. As I said in my original post, we directly connected one of the computers to our cable modem for a few days. During those 3 days, we didn't have a single dropped connection. We also had great connections BEFORE we switched to the wireless router (we used to use a switch) as of 2 months ago. First off I would check the Event viewer - Start/Control panel/Administrative tools/Event viewer on all 3 machines and read and compare the red or yellow markers to see if there is anything there. Took a look -- nothing there coincided with any of our dropped connections in the past couple of days. As Jodi noted, disabling Zonealarm did not do the trick, removal cured it for me. I'm sorry, I just don't buy that ZoneAlarm could be causing this. I've looked at all the computers. It's actually only installed on one machine (my husband's). His computer isn't even running right now, and yet I've dropped my connection 3 times in the past 6 hours. How could ZoneAlarm on a machine that is not even turned on have anything to do with it? I'm concerned that it may be Mikie's suggestion -- interference from outside. If so, I'm not sure what we can do to resolve it.

Your problem is most likely in the interface box. Although it would be the phone providers responsibility, you can fix it easily if you care to. You have every indication of a common bad (high resistance) connection. You'll have to access the phone companies side of the box. If you look to where the wires are connected, you'll probably see green fluff on one or bothe connections. Chances are, the copper wire has been eaten through and has or is coming loose. Carefully remove each wire, one at a time so you don't lose track of where they are connected. Also be careful of the terminal stud if it is badly corroded. If it is in bad shape, loosen it just enough to unwrap the wire and remove it. Clean the terminal, strip back some insulation and reconnect the wire. You'll find a very clean noise free connection...unless the same problem exists at the "big box down the road".