DSL keeps stalling

Last year I got a DSL connection but have had an innconsistent connection ever since. Once I connect to the internet I can browse at impressive speed, there is nothing wrong with the speed of the connection as long as it's working, But my connection frequently stalls, the connection itself dosen't drop, I don't get a disconection window but it doesn't seem to conect with ever it's going for almost a minute. The load circle in Firefox will just swirl forever until it conects with where its going.

I have 3 possible clues to what the problem might be:

Connection Icon: You know the little conection icon at the bottom of the screen, the one with the two
little computer screens that are over lapping each other? Well i know when I was on dial-up they where both green when connected properley. With my knew conection the top sreen on that icon has always been yellow with the bottom one green. I asked my ISP's lousy tech suport and the guy just said if I can connect and surf it should be fine but I wonder if thats wrong now. So is that Icon an indication of a cause?

Connection Wire: The modem instructions from my ISP said the conection wire(normal phone wire) for my DSL should only be 6 feet from the phone outlet to the modem (or splitter wich i'm using). I didn't have an outlet close enough to where i keep my PC so i'm using this really long cord, 20-30 ft probably. The oulet is on the other side of my house. Could this be enough to cause the yellow screen icon and/or the stalling conection? I thought of conecting the modem six feet away from the outlet and then have the LANwire from the modem to the PC be the 20ft one but that wire is a special LAN wire and i only have the 6ft one that came with the modem so have to keep it close to my PC. If you can even get a 20ft LAN wire, would this be something that be worth investing in? I only want to spend the money if someone thinks it will solve the problem.

I called and asked my tech-suport if this would cause the problem and someone just said the conection would be a bit slower but they seemed pretty indiferent. Would like some second opinions

Ethernet Card: I bought a $15 Ethernet Network Adapter. It sais "10/100M Fast Ethernet Network Adapter". By Encore. I was told it didn't matter how much I spent on this card, but could the CHEAP card be the problem?

Robert

Thank you for your time.


win 98SE

 

May be this can Help.

Optimizing & Measuring the "Speed" of Internet Connection.

http://www.ezlan.net/PPPOE.html