My internet recently got slower, it jumped from the speed of broadband to the speed of dial up.?

Here's the full story, I went away for thanks giving break and left my computer on. I'm hooked up to the internet through a Lynxs wireless router that has no WEP protection or anything like that. The wireless card in my computer is a Belkin that I bought back in 2005. I'm looking for some possible causes for my internet to slow down and solutions for those causes. I'll pick the person with the correct cause and correct solution for best answer. You can email me at iFox33@gmail.com with questions.

My internet recently got slower, it jumped from the speed of broadband to the speed of dial up.?kawasaki

if you have no password protection on your wireless router it could well be that the neighbours have been enjoying using your broadband connection...it sounds like you may have been ''shaped'' by your ISP ...what they do is shape your usage down to dial up speeds if you have exceeded your download limit for the month..check with your ISP if this is indeed the case..then make sure you put a password on your router!!

My internet recently got slower, it jumped from the speed of broadband to the speed of dial up.?nortan antivirus

I agree with the other poster it sounds like a memory leak. If you recently upgraded to IE 7 this is a good possibility the program has many flaws! I would start by turning my computer off and turning it back on, this will reset and refresh the memory.
Did you install IE7? Plz. put in comments. Otherwise, try rebooting your modem and put WEP protection or put MAC address validation to rule out people stealing your bandwidth.
Did you leave the router switched on when you went?