Can't access the internet with Google Chrome or IE

I'm having some strange problems. I can sometimes get on line with IE or Google Chrome and sometimes not. In addition a flash drive will sometimes be recognized and sometimes not. I've run the Dell diagnostics and it comes up all green on the hardware. I've been to the malware forum and came up clean. Any ideas on what could be going on?

 

I see, thanks for pointing that out. I guess I was concentrating so hard on how to get it going it didn't occur to me that I wasn't supplying enough info. All other computers on my network run fine with no connection concerns. I have a total of six computers hooked up, four wired and two wireless. The computer I'm having trouble with is one I brought home from a local school. It is a Dell laptop running Windows XP SP3. The teacher who uses the computer was having the same problems at work and her home, so I'm pretty sure it's not my network. When I say sometimes connect and sometimes not I mean one of three things will happen. 1. Google Chrome will try to connect but just sit there saying it is resolving proxy. 2. IE doesn't even try to connect, there is no reaction when I click the icon. 3. They connect to the internet without any problem. Sometimes restarting the computer will cause them to work, sometimes not. Shutdown takes forever, or so it seems. As I said another issue is the USB flash drive issue. The flash drives work perfectly on any other machine. But on this one even if Windows decides to issue a drive letter, and that sometimes doesn't happen, you might see the files or you might get a blank screen.

Is this any help or do you need more info?

 

Okay, I plugged the computer in to a hard wire connection. I've been able to access the internet without any concerns. I eventually downloaded Mozzila Firefox since I prefer to use that browser.

So now the big concern is that the USB connections. If the flash drive is connected windows XP just ignores it. If I reboot the computer with the drive attached, both the drive and its contents are recognized with no problem.

If the USB drive is disconnected, the drive letter still remains saying it is a removable drive. If the drive is plugged back in and the drive letter is accessed a message comes up saying the drive is not accessible.

Any attempt to look at the drives in Drive Manager is thwarted by the manager because of "an unknown error."I've Googled this concern and it seems there are a lot of people who have this problem but I have yet to find anyone who knows how to fix it.

 

Okay, I finally gave up and reloaded win XP. All is well. Thanks for trying to help.