[Annulus]

thanks guys for the suggestions. fwiw, i have not moved nor made any changes to my house or computer set-up in the last year.

thanks flashpro for that writeup. i will definitly save what you said if things act up again. this is what i did in the mean time and things have been back to normal for the last 24 hours or so. all i did was change the ethernet plug in on the wireless router (i suck at computers). not sure if this makes sense, but i moved it from the #1 spot to the #2 spot on the wireless router. i figured why not try something, and then reset the wireless router. so far no problems. but if things act up again, i will try what you suggested. thanks again.