So it's the computer itself or the connection? It sounds like a pretty nice computer for a simple task such as web browsing to make it choke. One thing I'd check personally is the internet cache, see if any toolbars/crapware is running, and the other basic PC maintenance. If it's internet lag, take a speedtest when it's running slow and compare it to when it's running fast and see if there is a latency issue OR a speed issue, or both. Also another thing I'd check is your CPU usage. When you open up the internet, open up the Task Manager and hit processes, and sort it by CPU time so that the processes consuming more CPU are at the top. Recently, there was a known issue with Automatic Updates especially with Windows XP (Windows 2000, not so much, Vista unaffected) that chews up CPU and RAM like crazy that Microsoft did patch (but you may have missed the hofix). If something like svchost.exe is using 99% or near 50% of the CPU for a long time, then Automatic Updates is being most likely stupid on you. This is definately the case if the svchost.exe file is using 80,000+k of memory and bouncing up and down a lot especially past 100,000k . Don't try shutting it down though, your system might go into a critical state and reboot. If this is the case, post here and I can tell you how to fix this.
