3com officeconnect 3CRWE554G72T router disconnecting

Hi

I have a rather silly, but annoying, problem. We are 4 students who is attached to the internet using a 3com officeconnect router. All machines are connected to the router through a wired network. The internet works great for us except for a couple of things. One person claming that the router is slowing the internet speed down. We should have about 15-16 Mbps. If anyone have any facts on this one please let me know

But the real problem is another issue. At night when the internet connection isnt used for anything but idling on IRC and other chat services we usually gets disconnected a time or two. This is a real problem for us. I remember when I lived alone and used the same router on a regular ethernet connection and I had the same problem there. So it doesnt matter if I use PPPoE or just static/dynamic IP on the WAN port. For me I dont really care about IRC so I dont really care about this either, but there are others in the house who argue hard against 3com as a brand and for buying more "better" network gear just so we wont timeout on irc at night. Anyone know how I can prevent this problem with the router I already own?

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the router is already using latest firmware.

Thanks so much for ANY response to this thread