ED,I've had these problems for well over a year now, or at least it seems that way.

I suspect it might have something to do with the wild blue fix since it happened around that time. At first I thought it was the router, so I bought another one and same problem. Ran it without the router and still the same although I believe it's not as bad. Annoying to say the least. For me it doesn't mattter what time of day or night it is, it still stalls. I experience this on 3 seperate machines. either the problem is with the server or somehow installing a router changes some settings like DNS or something    I only experience this on NAT which leads me to believe that the problem is on the server side>

Perhaps taking a survey might bring the culprit to light>  brand of computer : age of computer : operating system : browser : router : service :anti virus : other software
as much info as possible

Machine 1:   Dell P4 2.8  3 years old, XP,Firefox,router wired, Wireless service provider high speed, PC Tools antivirus/threatfire/avira antivir

Machine 2:  Custom built  Dual core 2.4 new,XP,Firefox, no router, Wireless service provider ( seperate account ) high speed, PC Tools Antivirus/threatfire

Machine 3:  Custom built P4 800  old and slow, XP, Internet Explorer,Access Point wireless from Machine 1's router, PC Tools antivirus/threatfire