exploring the internet

I have been having speed issues opening pages (5+ seconds) including my virgin media home page. I have a 20mb connection running about 17 in a speed test.

I have tried firefox which doesnt seem much better.

Other machines on the shared connection seem a lot faster. (2 cards in my machine with the broadband on one card and the internal network on the second card sharing the broadband)

Can anyone suggest why I might do to help ?

Have you put a new Virus programme or firewall on ? If not check your LAN connection on your box, something may have hijacked it. If you haven't cleaned the dust out of box lately give it a good blow out and pull the cards out and clean the gold connections with a soft rubber (eraser). Check your cable for kinks between your box and router//modem. If you can, change connection slot on router/modem.
Just a few quickies