Well, it the avast settings link bellow on my signature you can found some suggestions. Specially on section [InetWD].
You must configure avast correctly to dial-up and/or DSL connection. That’s my ‘last’ guess as you do not use proxy nor firewall (really?, won’t you use one?).
If you want to get rid from the red panel, set
SuppressUpdateErrorInfo=1
on section [AAVM]
Hope this help 8)