Thank you PV, gentlemen for your sympathy and suggestions. Both are much appreciated. Barring any mishaps, hiccups and cruel twists of fate form the Univers, I trust that the problem has now been found and solved.

Apparently 8 mb download speed was too much for the equipment at the exchange to handle which is why the connection was terribly unreliable to the point of being useless. Going to 4 mb seems to have cured the problem. Here's to hoping that I can put a couple of frustrating weeks behind me. How the connection was set to 8 mb in the first place is a bit of a mystery to me, as it seems that the ISP has been only too willing to bump the speed up in incremental steps, without me telling them to do so!

I too think it would be very informative to hear more about how you combated that rootkit infection JRT, as I would have reinstalled the entire system about 5 minutes after recognizing a virus. Your perserverance my friend is highly commendable.