Internet slows to a halt - Somewhat off Topic

[crockett]

I use my home desktop computer to play Poker. I usually play between 3-6 nights per week. I am running Windows XP Home Edition. The computer is new with a 3.2 GHz processor. I use dial-up.

After playing online for awhile my internet connection will become so slow that I will start being dropped out of hands because my computer will not exchange the data fast enough to allow me to play without timing out. I will play for an extended time without having any lag and then it will start to slow, getting worse and worse. Within 15 minutes the lag is so bad that I’m being dropped from hands.

When I bring up the dial-up box to disconnect I notice that this ALWAYS occurs after I have received/sent (I can’t remember which it is) between 12M and 20M of data. Finally, after I disconnect and reconnect I am right back to square one with an excellent connection and no problems until again I’ll get to that magic 12-20 Meg range. I disconnect and reconnect and everything is fine again. This has been going on for two months. It happens irrregardless of what Poker site I'm logged on to.

I never had this problem until I went to XP and I also installed a new modem. I didn’t think much of it until someone approached me (without knowing about my problem) and described the exact same problem.

Does anyone know if there is fix to this issue?

Thanks.