$#@%! XP problem. Help!

I have a problem with my XP that seems to be getting worse by the day. While using Internet Explorer, I appear to erraticallly lose communication with the server...the 'double monitor' icon in the tray goes dark, quits flashing. communication speed indicates normal at about 48kbs (obviously a dial-up ). It may take 3-5 minutes for a page to load, if it doesn't time out. At other times diring the same session it will work normally. It seems like the problem is occuring more frequentlt and lasting longer each time, but maybe that's just me losing patience. I learned to check System Processes recently when my clean-up malfunctioned. When the problem occurs, all processes are at 00-02 except System Idle which is at 95 (I understand this is normal?)

Last night I went to log on and got what I guess was a DOS screen that said Windows didn't load properly and after 30 secs. or so, the screen went blank. I had to rebbot 3 times before I was able to read the page and found an option that said "load Windows normally". I did and it worked. I haven't been back today to see if that problem recurred.

There have been a few other little glitched lately and I wonder if it might all be somehow related to the bib service pack I downloaded a few weeks ago from Microsoft.

I'm still fairly new to computers so please overlook my obviously-flawed terminology.

Thanks for any help!