Up until recently I have had no problems connecting to and downloading. I using XP, Dsl modem. The only change has been with my anti-virus software, formerly using Symantec but switched to AVG(Grisoft)2 months ago. When I try and connect it never goes beyond the one bar but I never see the firewall icon either.

I used the 3 steps suggested here and the test thing worked fine, I do have Upnp and forget the other step but that was okay.

There are no exempt files listed at my AVG settings so I left that alone. I am not running windows firewall, I disabled that in the hopes that was the problem but there was no change.
I am not particularly pc lingo savvy but if someone has a suggestion, please keep it simple and hope to get this figured out.
Thank you, Kislanya