win 98 internet explorer and window explorer hangs

I have windows 98se and my window explorer and IE6 internet explorer both hang. The window explore does nothing when you click on the icon and ie6 will go to the my chosen link and trys to load then window freezes and stops respondings.
I tried to run my computer in safe mode and the window explorer works just fine while ie6 will tried and load my links but page is not found because isp is not loaded in safe mode. So why do they work in safe mode but not anywhere else