Cranky connection

My connection keeps falling asleep or just plain falling
over and generally acting weird and cranky. If I don't use the connection
for a while I get this message to work offline/try again with the connection
attempt as it can't get a signal - if I select 'try again' the connection
wakes up, if I try and use IE, it doesn't respond to any other apps.

The other night it fell over entirely and would not connect at all, I
had to go into the set-up pages and reboot the router which worked then
(eventually) and
again this morning with the added bonus that it managed to boot up the other
computer in the LAN as well, which is a novel feature.

I'm using a Mentor 4 port modem/router, model MR4C, that uses the Conexant
chipset. My ISP is Freedom2Surf. I have two WinXP PCs ethernet networked
through the router with 2x20m patch leads as the router is by the phone
point in my flat which is in a different room.

I can't figure this out at all and Mentor offer nothing in the way of tech
support. Bottom line maybe Mentor just plain suck and I should get myself a
more user
friendly and properly tech supported model!

So, basically, wtf is going on???

Cheers
Jay