ok so i checked lsmod | less and did not see anything 'tulip' anywhere.

however i did do this:
cp /lib/modprobe.d/tulip.conf /etc/modprobe.d/tulip.conf
and then did
nano /etc/modprobe.d/tulip.conf and commented out
#blacklist dmfe

saved computer restarted and it is working! THANK U

ps. do u know why it was blacklisted?

Glad it all worked out for you.
I do not know why it was blacklisted, but the likely reason is that it causes conflicts with other modules.

websites are working slow / timing out 90% of the time.

I tried setting resolve.conf to use opendns and that fixed the problem immediately, however the fix was temporary??? because when i restart my pc it reverts back to the old resolv.conf file.

1. is there a way to make my internet run properly with my normal DNS settings?
2. if no, then how do i make it remember to use opendns or google dns settings so that my internet is not broken every time i restart the computer.

thanks... :D

edit:
so my current resolv.conf file looks like this:
and when i change it to the following my internet works great, until i restart the pc:

Network manager is overwriting the dns configuration so you could either,
reconfigure the network without networkmanager now that you've got the driver problem taken care of so it will keep your settings, or tell network manager which servers to try.

I think to configure dns in network manager the GUI way is right click on the networkmanager icon - click edit connections - click your connection in the appropriate tab and select edit -> go to the ip{4,6} settings tabs and set method to dhcp/automatic addresses only -> the dns server box ungreys and you can add them there. (I don't know how to configure network manager via CLI/conf files off the top of my head)

i see... does anyone know why my default dns settings are not working on linux, though? seems strange to me

Some nice tips here as well:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Resolv.conf

I'm not sure - maybe check out the router config, ping those isp dns servers to verify they are all up, maybe reboot the router. Those dns servers are working OK on other setups?

i tried rebooting the router. i tried pinging the dns servers. everything works fine on my other windows systems. ubuntu worked fine before. something is goofed up in my settings it has to be i just dont know...

Can you post the output of these as root?

traceroute 192.168.1.1
traceroute 68.238.0.14
nmap -sS 192.168.2.1-3

Try to mark the output with your mouse and then use the middle button to paste it in.

Try making rc.networkmanager non-executable.
Also helps to remove/comment out the 'search' parameter in resolv.conf

I don't know much about networkmanager but if you are back to using the stock DHCP options from netconfig then you will need to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to add
under the 'Config information for eth0' section. This will prevent /etc/resolv.conf from being overwritten by the DHCP lease and you will be able to permanently use an external DNS server there.

thank you all for your help i wouldn't have figured this out without you guys.

i double checked everything 3x and the exact same DNS settings that my windows computers got from the router are what linux was set up to use too, but they just didn't want to work with linux. all i did was edit my resolv.conf file to use the google dns servers how it shows in the link above, and i locked the file with chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf and the internet is working beautifully. strange, but solution works. it does bother me a little that I can't get it to run with my own stock DNS nameservers but I CBF to work on this anymore