XP Network Connection

[propellor-hed]

I really hope someone can help me this. This has been a two week/two reformat issue!!

I reformatted last weekend and when everything came up and I got on-line, I noticed that my internet connection was really slow. I'm on a cable modem so I thought maybe traffic was heavy. Later that night, I tried it again and everything seemd faster...for a while. I then noticed what was going on; I was losing my connection for a couple of seconds and then getting it back. AIM and MSN kept signing on and off and that was my gauge. I tried looking for a pattern, but there really was none. Sometimes I would be OK for 15-20 minutes, and sometimes for 1 minute.

Here is my setup:

Biostar NForce2 mobo (on-board LAN/Sound)
AMD 2600+
512MB RAM
GeForce Ti4200 Vid Card
6GB Partition for XP

XP with SP1/all updates
Kerio Firewall
AVG Antivirus
AdAware 6
Spybot S&D

As far as software goes, this is ALL that's on the box presently. I reformatted (again) last night thinking it was something in one of the patches or a driver, so I reformatted and loaded just the needed apps. I got online and tested, and same thing happened. I've checked Device Manager and Network Properties and everything looks OK. There is nothing in the Event Viewer, so it's like Windows doesn't see a problem. I've also restarted the router and modem, but this did nothing.

My next step is to insert a PCI NIC to see if there's some issue with the on-board NIC, but I wanted to get some other ideas before cracking it open and starting with the hardware.

If anyone has ANY ideas, please forward them. I could use any advise on this that I can get!!

[Cactus]

Try this:

SP1 Slowdown Hotfix - -
fixes a flaw in Windows XP SP1. Changes to memory handling code result in programs which often allocate memory (which is many of them) can take up to ten times longer than normal to start. This Hotfix will be incorporated into SP2 when it is released. Install this update after installing SP1.

[propellor-hed]

Cactus -

I really appreciate the quick response. Do you happen to have the Article number for this fix? I'd like to see if it's something that I've already installed. Beyond that, I don't understand what this fix has to do with network connection issues. Maybe you could explain?

Just as an FYI, all other apps work great, and the tests (software-based) I've run on memory, etc. have all checked out fine. From what I can see, it looks like it's hardware based; I've just never seen this problem!