We have the same thing but mine hates me and loves to throw hurdles at me. You must be a nicer person than I am. :-)
I've noticed several people hgave mentioned the firewall. I don't use the firewall in Norton - I have Road Runner cable service and they provide me with a firewall. They recommended that I not try to use both because the software products clash.
You might want to check with your ISP and find out what products they are using to protect you. And .. you might want to ask them if their system might be having a problem with Norton.
I also do a weekly clean-up of my system. First thing I do is run Disc Cleanup. After that program runs - I use Spybot and I have it check for junk on my systems. In one week - it ususally finds 12-18 files on my system that need to be deleted. The files are usually to track where you're going and where you're spending your money. They don't hurt your system - but they will slow down your system.
Then I run Ad-Aware. This program finds all those files which have been planted by other in your system as you are innocently surfing the net. What most of these do is send you continuous email about a select product - usually something you have recently purchased.
After running those 3 programs - I run defrag.
I am always amazed at how much faster my system runs after taking maybe less than 30 minutes to keep it cleaned up. Just a thought.
One other thing I do everyday is remove all the cookies I have accumulated that day.
Click on Start - run - it should show "cookies" highlighted - click OK - it will give you a window showing all the cookie documents. Click on Edit - select all - all the items will be highlighted in the window.
Hold down your Ctrl key and move your cursor over the "index" file which is at the top of the list of cookies - the highlight should disappear. The reason you need to do this is because the system will not allow you to delete that file.
Click File - delete - and all the cookies will disappear.
Close the window - then right click on your trash can and delete all the items in the trash can.
If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. If I don't know the answer - I can always check with my son.