FTP Password rejected

I am at present a user, and not a developer. However, I have a problem which I feel can only be solved by someone familiar with the inner workings of FTP and WIN 98SE.
My passwords are rejected when I attempt to use them to log in to my Sympatico webpage or my account with Angelfire (which I have had for about 5 years for my students' use). However, I have found that anonymous FTP with ftp.microsoft.com does work. The problem seems to be that some FTP-related routine in my system is not sending my password correctly in response to the PASS prompt in FTP communication. This has only happened since I have been using Sympatico High Speed DSL. I did not have any difficulty when I was using Total.Net or Inter.Net.Canada 56K dialup.
I have a 3-year old Aptiva with 192 meg of Ram and Win 98 SE. This password problem exists whether I try to log on with IE6, ACE FTP3, CuteFTP, or FTPeasy. In all cases, I get a message equivalent to 'invalid password', or 'the password does not go with the user name', even though the username and password are entered correctly.
I have also verified that my firewall (Sygate personal) is not the problem, by setting it to 'accept all'.

I hope that someone can help, as this is driving me up the wall!

Maybe the ftp is set to accept only certain ips? Have you tried contacting the hoster and asking them to try it? Or to reset your password.

The hoster is actually also the ISP, and they don't have a clue about what might be causing my problem. Initially, we thought the problem was due to my password being only 6 characters in length, rather than the required 8. I had my password changed, but the problem persists. Also, the same problem exists when I try to ftp to Angelfire, so it must be in my system.

Hello silverbeard :

Please check your A record. it must resolve the problem.

Thank you, Jobmak,

Please clarify- what is an A record, and how do I check it?