Bizarre inability to connect to many games and update services
 

Hey guys,

I don't know if anyone will be able to help me with this but I'm all out of ideas. I've had this problem for about a year now (!!) and it began randomly with no apparent cause.

I have a Toshiba Satellite L355d laptop running Windows Visa.

I can connect to the internet and even play some multiplayer games like Left 4 Dead 2, but my laptop refuses to let me log into minecraft, connect to verification servers when I try to update java, or connect to my university's remote networking service through ssh or vpn.

This problem persists over every internet connection I've tried, wireless and wired. I have disabled all of my firewalls and security programs with no change. I have uninstalled every program I installed within a month before and after the problem began. I've checked my proxy settings and things like that and found nothing amiss.

Does anyone have any suggestions for possible causes? I'm having trouble finding anyone else with a similar issue. Thanks for any help you can provide!

Hard to know
However I've seen several cases similar where the cause was an overheating router causing DNS resolution to go wrong.

Have you checked the HOSTS file?

checked for malware?