Steam network connection problems HELP!

So, recently Ive been having this problem that when i play a game or want to play an online game steam puts this MSG on my friends list.."No network connection could be made to the steam servers.Steam will automatically retry connection until the service becomes available." I know it has nothing to do with my router because my internet works fine as you can see im using it right now and my steam friends list still displays this message. i am getting EXTREMELY frustrated with this because i cant play a game for longer than 5 mins before it d/c and i have to wait and hour before it comes back and then it just repeats the process -.-; so please if anyone can help me with this I'd greatly appreciate it

It's probably just Steam Friends Network going through updates or service/maintenance or something.

Did you forward ports? It can also be your NIC's driver. Are you using Windows 7 right? If so, you have to test almost any driver out there for your NIC, i had that issue and solved it using a driver provided by microsoft.