Make sure you have your status bar showing at the bottom of your browser:
On top menu bar View Status bar (ticked)
Now when you d/click an icon, maybe IE, or a favorite you have saved, or have an address in the address bar and you press either the 'go' button or the 'Enter' to connect to that site, what exactly does the Status Bar say?
It hopefully will show: 'Opening page http://www.whatever.*****'. or 'Finding site . . . wating for reply', something like that.
If it only shows: www.whatever.*****' . . . . it won't connect.
I'm afraid I don't have a solution to this, but it will give others perhaps a little more information to diagnose your problem.