...Turns out I had a virus that was chatting to the net, handcuffing my connect. It was a "DLL" file, now vanquished, smitten,exorcised from my system.
Had been running 98SE, DSL, 24/7 for 6 months with no firewall. I guess I was lucky this never happened before. Brought this new box online with XP and it appears I was nailed within hours. Go figure.
Thanks to all who offered help...thought I'd provide a follow-up in case anyone sees this type of behavior in their systems.
MaxQ
edit: sorry, file named "hostdll.exe". Welchia virus.