I can say this: USB is not my preferred interface. The provided drivers are not always the best solution. I had quite a few problems at first, until I dumped USB and used a direct ethernet cable link. That fixed everything on my old machine.
My current browsing machine is a Pentium 4 with XP Pro, using Firefox, over wireless connection (a PCI card) to the router. I find A.org to be one of the most reliable connections on the net...
