hey guys, i've been through the hijack this and the XP forum with this problem to no avail. i was told to post it in here to see if this could be a hardware problem. since i have posted this a few times ill just link you to the other topic which describes the problem and various steps that i have gone through to solve it.
everything is summed up in those posts, thanks in advance for your help.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic56117.html
-connor