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[Sumpter250]

Gary, It's been so long since I've had any problems with Big Blue, I honestly cannot remember the last time.
I am on dial-up
At&t is my ISP ( and my land line provider )
I use Mozilla Firefox 4. for my browser.
I haven't "purged cookies" in ages
I have run a disk defragmentation recently

All the above, works, so if you are using any of the above mentioned, I would tend to not question those, and concentrate on the dissimilar ones. Not seeing any of your symptoms, makes any further guessing on my part....little more than just guessing.
Logic, leads my thinking towards something in the path between you, and the forum ( like ISP, Browser, internet connection--wireless? possible dropping of signal?/ wireless connection? ), unfortunately, as much as I would like to help, I don't have enough information to go on.
Don's suggestion about opening another tab and logging in there, might be a good starting point, if nothing else.
Pete