I'm an old DOS through 98SE user, now getting my baptism of fire in XP (Home). Although I am becoming more and more impressed and comfortable with this OS, I have one or two frustrating problems that I have never experienced before and am turning to this outstanding forum for help. The major problem I have is that regardless of  browser, (IE6, Netscape7.1 or FireFox (my default)), if the browser lies dormant (unused), whether open or not, for an hour or two, it will not connect to any sites - "page not available", "cannot find site" etc. (message dependent on browser). However, I can connect with my provider's (Earthlink) diagnostic site by using the numerical  IP address. All diagnostics pass, (pings, etc). But still no change. If I restart, everything is fine. If I continue using browser, everything works fine. If I then don't use for a while, de ja vu all over again. Have to restart. 
Specs are Dell 2400 Dimension, Pent 4, 2.66GHz, No virus that I'm aware of; Zone Alarm, Spybot, Spyblaster, Ad-Aware, Norton, all run regularly, 384mb memory. Tried provider, they were no help. Appreciate your input.

Maurice Reid

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