Trouble with some applications connecting to the internet

Ok so here's my confusion...just got a few new EA video games for my computer, and a few unfortunately require you to register your game to be elligibnle for online play and such. I'm having a lot of trouble of these applications connecting to the internet. To further explain, here's the case with two games medal of honor pacific assault and battlefield 2. Battlefield 2 installed flawlessly ,and the in-game multiplayer connects online easily, however, when i go to register the product via the electronic registration under start menu programs list and click conncect, the program is unable to connect. Luckily, this game can be played online without registering. However, with medal of honor pac assault it's not the case. I can't get the registration app to connect or the in game online multiplay. I was able to register my game through EA's website but it still doesn't change the fact that my game can't load the servers. My roomate on the same network can connect just find, but when i use his connection it doesn't work...which leads me to believe it has something to do with my settings...I disabled windows firewall with SP2 an have no other software titles that would prevent an outgoing connection. I also do not have a router or anything with a built in firewall. Anyway, if anyone has any advice on what to try i'd appreciate it. It's jsut really confusing how it works flawlessy on my roomates computer which is 2 years older. My computer is 1 month old, pentium D, 2 gigs mem, and so on so that shouldnt be a problem. I've also noticed my internet explorer fails to load certain pages such as my online banking statements, while mozilla loads it jsut fine....dunno if that tells you anything or if it's completely irrelavant.

by the way, i'm new to this forum...so if theres another post about this topic somewhere, gimme a good slap and show me the link where info can be found...thanks.

yes, both are legal separate copies

all i got is a mcafee virus scan which i have disabled