i use comcast, and after being on the phone with some outsourced Indian dude for about 30 minutes we came to the conclusion that because the modem seems to be working perfectly fine, it's my computer.

i use utorrent and based on that it shows download cap is 1.0 kbs and upload cap 30kbs

where as usually down is 800kbs, and up 40kbs or so.

i've done a virus check and got nothing, i searched for newly created and modified files from the last 2 days and didn't see anything weird.

When i restarted in safe mode the internet works fine.

any ideas on what this could be?

oh and thanks for the help Sunny

Try doing an online speed test and see what results you get.
Try it both for a normal bootup and in safe mode with networking:

http://www.dslreports.com/stest

Compare the results. If you are getting poor results in normal boot, but good results in safe mode, then almost certainly something is running on the system that is directly causing a slowdown. You'd want to start going through all your startup items and processes to locate the exact problem.

i forgot to mention, but i've done that as well.

thing is that i don't think there are any new processes. My start up list is way longer than i'd like it to be, but i think almost all is needed.

it also happened in the middle of things. i was browsing and bam it froze, and never got back to normal speeds.

Click START > RUN
Type in MSCONFIG then click OK
In the GENERAL tab, unselect the option that says LOAD STARTUP ITEMS
Click OK then reboot.

See if that changes anything.

but don't i need those items?

i have an HP machine, and most of the startup items are HP related. i figured it needed it.

You dont need them to start Windows or the machine, no. There may be startup items that help run certain devices or software, but to simply start Windows and run just about everything, no, you dont need any of it. And actually, probably around 50% of most peoples startup items are completely unnecessary and can be disabled.
This is simply as a diagnostic test anyway. To see if there is something in your startup items causing an issue. It's easy enough to re-enable the startup items, once we've tested to see what happens with them all off.

thanks a lot Buggy.

i'll see tonight if it works. and i'll report back to ya.

it worked

+ my PC is running a whole lot faster. It's missing some features (like the volume bar going cross screen when i put it up or down) put that's definitely not something i can't do without. Otherwise i don't think much is missing.

THANKS!