AIM will not connect

I was online and away all day long, yet when i come back home i have been signed off, yet no one can use the computer. Signed back on, left again, came back, and was signed off the same. When i tryed to sign on, I had my screen name and password right, but the window only said “connecting…” it would stay that way for a minute or two and then give up. I unstalled AIM 6.0, restarted twice, disabled firewall, tryed an earlier version, and nothing works. I even tryed AIM express but it will not launch in IE or firefox. Now i cannot redownload AIM 6.0 and the older AIM version is stuck on “verifying name and password” as it has been for many minutes. Web pages load fine as usual and Gmail can still chat.

What do i do?

while i tryed to download AIM 6.0 again, it said
“Your computer lost its connection to the Internet during the download process.

Error: -1006″

update: i was signed on for a minute to old AIM and someone IMed me but i cud only reply twice, now it wont connect again

update 8:38 signed on again, took a long time, but it’s on and i fear it will go soon

update 8:40 it died again, still cant use express or download AIM 6.0

update 8:43 AIM 6.0 download returned this message
We encountered an error during the download process. Please try downloading again from AIM.com.

Error: -1004

update 8:47 AIM 6.0 managed to finish downloading, still connecting on old AIM

update 8:48 old AIM says “connecting..” for 2 seconds and then says “The AIM service cant be reached”

update 8:50 AIM 6.o is installed and running, but it says “connecting…” and stays that way

update 8:56 just tried an online multiplayer game and it works fine