I'm not saying it isn't the PC Chris, but everything else works fine, both on normal usage and on the 'net. Past problems have been sorted when I had the PC updated and the memory/capacity hugely increased - the pics loading problem was my fault, for not re-configuring after up-dating IE, and now works fine.
I only seem to have problems with 'hotmail' being slow sometimes, and now not being able to open messages or access any 'hotmail' function, and can only think this is due to the weight of traffic perhaps? Could be a internet connection problem, but as mentioned, everything else on the 'net works fine.