AAAAARRRGGGHHHHHHHH!
Tried reinstalling IE6 then IE 5.5 and also firefox, nothing worked.
When I put the code 80.5.178.26 into the address bar (on IE) the page remains blank, a box pops up saying 'windows explorer could not open the search page' and the bottom bar displays 'res://c:\windows\system\shdoclc.dll/dnserror.htm'
Tried pinging the 80.5.178.26 again it says request timed out and 0% received but that seemed to be working fine day before yesterday.