Cannot Upload, attach or e-mail anything but text

I can't seem to find anyone experiencing this problem to my exact specifications.

I can't upload attachments or pics in OE 6, hotmail, gmail, myspace, etc. etc. I can receive e-mails with attachments just about any size despite slow dial up connection.

I'm getting different error messages at different times different days. I get the 'your smtp server has not responded in 60 seconds would you like to wait another 60 seconds for your server to respond?' this one is the one I get most often in OE 6. I also get the rejected server one at times too but that has only been twice in the last 6 weeks.

If I try to upload photos to hotmail it acts like it's uploading (taking it's own sweet time for a small photo of 27.0kb). When it's done, the attachment (paperclip) isn't there.

I've disabled firewalls, antivirus, windows firewalls, to no avail. If anyone has any insight for a novice at fixing problems like these I would greatly appreciate it.

:sigh::4-dontkno