[Doppler]

Hmmm lemme give this a shot.

To me this sounds like either a ram issue (PS is a notorious ram hog) or an issue with his connection. I whould check the following, make sure he has nothing that whould sip bandwidth in the background nada zip zilch. THen check how hes connecting, if it's a DSL or broadband modem is it internal or external, either way check the configs. If its external check his lan card. (this is assuming he is indeed on broadband, if not his only choice may be to deal with it sadly) In the interim a defrag aint all that bad of an idea although it doesnt sound like related to this problem, any idea what Video card he's running? But my best bet is shitty connections omewhere down the line. Might suggest running a /tracert <ip> to his isp to check what the packet loss is at he can find his ip either ip or hostname by doing a ipconfig /all at the command prompt. Hope this helps at least track down the problem.