GAIM Connection Problem

Ok, have been using GAIM for a couple months now, and love it. Much better than Triton, Trillian, or Miranda in my opinion.

However, recently I haven’t been able to connect with my AIM screenname using GAIM. GAIM usually hangs around “Connection Established, Cookie Sent.” It will sit there for a few minutes before showing an error message about loosing the connection.

I’ve tried a few things to fix it; I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled GAIM (didn’t work). I’ve tried using GAIM on other computers on my home network (to see if its a router/firewall thing) and it worked on the other computers.

I also tried changing the proxy settings on a whim to TOR (the anonymous onion router) and it worked; I was able to login (albeit very slowly, because its TOR) and was able to IM for about 20 min before being kicked off because TOR lost a few peers for the anonymous connection.

I’ve deactivated PC Cillian Firewall and the Windows Firewall (though that shouldn’t matter) with no effect. I’ve also gone through settings in GAIM; manually selecting the IP address, changing ports that its set to, and of course, changing proxies. Still can’t get it to work (other than TOR). Has anyone had a similar problem?

The only cause I can think of is that I was modifying some Windows Environment Variables (Control Panel, System, Advanced, Environment Variables) in order to set up a network renderer for a graphics app I have. I’m pretty sure I didn’t modify any info for GAIM (if there are any variables that GAIM writes) and even if I did, wouldn’t a reinstall fix that?

Thanks in advance; I really hope I can get this fixed, I love GAIM.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I’m on Windows Media Center Edition SP2