So, I have a big new Vista PC with an Asus motherboard (with 2 ethernet ports), and my two roomates have 2 laptops. One mac, one PC.
Up until a week ago, we would all share a connection through a linksys router that was connected to a cable modem.
The laptop wireless, and me physically.

That was all good and it worked without a problem. BUT, after I started playing online games again, I noticed that the fastest connections I was getting from servers were 40 - 50 (ping). That kinda pissed me off so I tried connecting my PC directly to the internet (without the router in the way), the lowest ones went down to 15 - 20.
Quite an improvement when it comes to Call of Duty 4

So I reconfigured the network. Disabled the DHCP on the router and hooked it up on my 2ND ethernet port,
Then I hooked up the cable modem directly to my PC. And enabled INTERNET SHARING on VISTA Ultimate.

Believe it or not, that ALSO worked, and Me, and my roomates all got fast internet access.

BUT - now, I have come to realize, that My computer's internet access is acting VERY strange. With the following symptoms:

A. I will go to a website, it will load nice and fast, and then I'll click on a link, firefox / ie will tell me that i'm offline. Immediately, without even trying to load the page. I'll hit REFRESH, and the page will load fine. (sometimes it will take 2 - 3 hits on the refresh button)

B. I will manually type in a website in the address field or push a link in another website, and instead of that website I'll get WWW.GOOGLE.COM. no matter how many times I try to refresh.

C. My internet connection will suddenly die out - but ONLY the browser part. Yesterday I was Video confrencing with a friend, and iE / Firefox / Safari all REFUSED to acknowledge there was an internet connection although I was actively talking and seeing my friend just fine on Messenger / Skype.

I'm a computer technician by trade but this boggles me.. I believe i'm experiencing dropped packets but I'm not sure what steps to take to solve this (and I don't want to reconnect my PC to the router the old way)

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Huumm..sems like a spyware problem if you ask me. The http port is probably being "flooded". Any new anti-virus/Prot Software installed lately ? Or its because you have Vista (Sorry, had to say it)

But probably some spyware/malware problem. Download Spybot and Lavasofts Adware, update then, and pass them. And NoScript for Firefox That Plugin is da Shiat. i havent seen a Google Ad for some time now.