Weird Internet problem

I have 56k dialup connection to the Internet. Whenever I connect the
"Application has crashed" dialog appears saying that svchost.exe has crashed
(but the internet icon appears in the taskbar). After that my browser keeps
giving me "cannot find server" error and I cant connect to any server.
Closer inspection revealed it is the "DNS client" service that is crashing.
Even if I restart the service it crashes as soon as I open a browser. Not
only that, it crashes the "Theme" service too, so now all my windows end up
looking awful(The title bars look like a command prompt title bar). Now, is
there a solution or am I completely screwed here.