Ok, I was so pissed off with AH freezing every 5 seconds for 1-3 seconds (since last week) that I formatted my drive.
Reloaded everything and all looked good for the reentry in to AH.....
AH worked nice and smoothly offline(80-100fps) as per usual

So I connect to the internet and run pingplotter(250ms on a modem from London), all is rock solid.
So I start AH and straight away the mouse is freezing every 4-5 seconds.
I kill AH and disconnect, restart AH in offline mode and its fine.
So, after 6 months AH just upped and started to have a problem with my modem??
I have not changed any drivers in the last month when all was good.
Any ideas?
AMD 1.4Ghz
256mb DDR
GeForce 2 Mx400 64mb
40Gb ATA100 7200rpm
20Gb ATA100 7200rpm
SoundBlaster Live! 1024
Wingman Extreme Force 3D USB
WinMe
Detornator v23.11
DirectX 8.1