Internet only works in safe mode (windows 7)

About a week ago, I upgrade my RAM. Everything ran smoothly, so I decided to also do a PC clean up with CCleaner, Avast antivirus, and remove malware with Malbytes. A few days later, after no apparent change, I could not boot up my computer with out it freezing once windows explorer was in use. I ended up doing a system restore, which brought my computer back to normal health. However, since the system restore, my web browsers (tried both Firefox and IE) will not load any pages. I am connected to my home network, which shows I am connected to the internet. When I load safe mode (with networking), I can load any page just fine, but once I turn it off, no matter what I've tried to do, I cannot browse at all. All my programs can still update via the web, so I know I'm connected, the problem only seems to be browsing. So far I have tried disabling all start up programs, running various malware detectors, and restoring to an even earlier system restore point. I am on windows 7. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you

Hi dustin and welcome to the WTT forums. Sorry to hear about the Internet issues. The fact that you can connect in safe mode with networking, but not in normal mode indicates that something that is loading at startup in normal mode (but not in safe mode) is causing the problem. A likely culprit is one of your protection applications…… firewall anti virus etc (especially if you have a compbined suite of protections) You could use MSCONFIG in normal mode to prevent all normal startup items loading (deselect all) and you could also try looking at services and hiding all Microsoft ones (via MSCONFIG) apart from anything that you know runs your mouse or keyboard!) You could as an alternative try uninstalling your protections ( make a note of any serial numbers and copy downloaded executable installation files so you can reinstall later) Then reboot your computer and see if this has done the trick… please be very careful just a short test…as with your protections not in place your machine will be vulnerable to attack. Let us know how you get on Regards paws