[qasdfdsaq]

Norton has a habit of doing exactly this, in fact it's often the worse culprit. Normally it needs a specialised cleanup tool to fix, "turning it off" or even uninstall won't fix it (if it is indeed the problem).

However the easiest and most reliable way of finding out if the problem is any software whatsoever on the laptop or not, is to boot up a live CD and see if you can connect there (Ubuntu is among the easiest to use). If that works - the problem is Windows, or something in Windows. If it doesn't work then there's no point faffing around with the software or settings as the problem is nothing to do with it.