If you have any proxy software installed, turn it off, refresh the page and see if the page opens now. If it does not, continue.

If you have antivirus software that has 'Internet security', make sure it is set to 'allow all Internet traffic' and turn off 'download scan'. If the software has a firewall or personal firewall, disable it, turn off autoprotect, uncheck the box that allows autoprotect to start or load when windows starts, disconnect from the Internet and restart the computer. NOTE : Remember to put back the check in this box after surfing and testing the email for sending and receiving email. Restart the computer.

When the computer restarts, connect to the Internet and open Internet Explorer or the browser you are using to see the homepage, then try going to other pages or try pinging your ISP again. (Retype the homepage address without the "http://" )

If you cannot get a good response from ping or see the Internet, your modem may not be communicating completely with the ISP or some other software could be blocking it, like a firewall or filtering software or you may have one of the boxes for proxy server selected.

If this still does not work, ask your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to help you run the Internet Explorer repair, if you have version 5.5 or 6.0 .

If you still cannot browse pages, you may have to uninstall your firewall, antivirus software and reboot the computer.

At this stage, your next step may be to upgrade the web browser using the software CD your ISP may have given to you.

If you have the modem drivers on a CD, remove the modem from inside control panel, close all programs, insert the modem driver CD in the cdrom and reboot the computer immediately.

If you do not have the modem drivers on disk or CD but you know the name and model of the one installed, you can go to the modem driver page and download the correct drivers from the modem manufacturer.

When the computer has restarted, reopen control panel and test the modem to make sure it is responding properly. Then connect to the Internet and ping your ISP. If ping times out, replace the modem.

If ping gets a good reply, open the web browser and surf the Internet. Clear the address bar of the browser, type one of the major sites like msn.com, yahoo.com or google.com in the address bar and hit the ENTER key on the keyboard.

If you still cannot see the Internet, ask your ISP to ping your computer. If the ISP cannot ping your computer, ask them to help you run a repair on your web browser.

If that does not work, you may have to uninstall your firewall and antivirus software and reboot the computer.

After the rebooting, if ping works both ways and the antivirus software is gone but you still cannot see the Internet, reinstall your web browser.

If after reinstalling the web browser, ping works both ways but you still cannot see the Internet, you may have a problem in the windows operating system. Have a computer person check it out or reinstall windows.