Bella: I (thank the Lord) now have cable and when I turn the PC on, I am connected. And with XP running the show, so to speak, who knows what really goes across the line. As an example...I have never figured this one out: You get notification of critical updates, so you go to MS site to get the update and it says to you...this update is being done without taking any information from your PC (or words to that effect). Now, I ask you...how does it know what updates I need unless it "interrogates" my PC?