Unable to find cause of frequent attempts to connect to internet.

This is on WinXP.

The computer is not connected to the internet (the cable is not plugged in, plus the network connection has been disabled). At random times ranging from a few minutes to a few hours apart, it attempts to connect anyway. It pops up the "You are working offline, do you want to keep working offline?" box, which I think is an IE thing but I'm not sure.

Here's the strange thing. Neither IE nor Firefox are starting up when this happens. Task Manager is not showing any new processes or odd jumps in activity. I disabled access to IE just to see if it would stop, but it still happens. Nothing is present in Scheduled Tasks, and no software/services are allowed to update themselves (including Windows itself). I have tweaked my services down to the bare bones minimum.

Scans using a number of different tools (including Spybot, A-squared paid version, Housecall) have not revealed the cause. I did have a whole load of malware recently, but I got rid of it. Possibly something was missed.

My firewall (Comodo) is showing no outgoing connections or suspicious activity when these connection attempts happen.

I'm at a loss as to what else to try. This is so annoying, because it bumps me out of whatever I'm doing, including games.

 

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