aol and mirc help

so far im hating my dell maybe someone can help

it wont connect to irc, i keep getting unable to connect(connection refused) couldnt find anyhting helpful to help fix that
cant connect to aol it says conenction timed out, im connected thru modem and router and can use firefox but aol wont go to my eamil
so i go to aol.com and try to use the webmail and get connection refused there
i disabled the firewall and still nothing changes