We were able to connect for about 10 mins to download ad-aware, spybot, sygate firewall and avg.
Sounds like a modem issue to me. I had a Toshiba broadband modem pass all its hardware tests but would only let me on in bursts of 5 minutes at a time 4-5 times a day. The company replaced it with a Motorolla modem and all is well.
In other words, don't trust the modem's hardware test when you plug it in. Ask the ISP if they can see you with the modem plugged in. It sounds dumb that they wouldn't already have tried that, but getting my ISP to figure out the modem was dead took a lot of phone calls to tech support. :-?
Do you have a router? My Linksys router has a tendency to forget my MAC address for no reason.
