okay, I broke it down a bit. Seems that aol browser which is IE based will not detext index.php on this board but IE does. Not sure why this is because I am able to view index.php pages everywhere else. No clue why this is occuring to me either

Could be something to do with AOL browser not accepting php extensions as actual webpages? Just Don't use an AOL browser TBH
well, that is not the case because aol indeed reads php extensions. I have tested this and it is not the issue. Also, as easy as it is to say not to use aol browser the fact is I do and like it along with preferring it for my general use. For anything advanced I use mozilla. So the extension issue is ruled out. I have the same issue with my installed mybb rc2 as well but I do not run into this conflict with anything else regarding index.php pages.
just tested a new install and it doesn't occur. must be related to something on this site that is giving my browser a hard time.

Makes no good sense to me at all why it only happens on this site. My browser settings are not conflicting.
I'm not sure whats causing this because these server settings are the same as ones that are on many sites.. If you go to
http://www.surfionline.com/index.php, does that show up as a 404?
Chris
yep, I don't get that anywhere else either. so it is related to the server here. how wierd. I get a 404 not found for that link
lol, that snuck in on me. but as stated above. the index on this board is the only place I have an issue with this. my browser has no probs with php extensions so I am still at a loss on this. the forum seems to conflict with a handful of things browser related.