Die, Sockets! Die!

[root@thelbane.brisnet.org.au (Dancer)]

Observe the following:

Active TCP connections
Proto  Recv-Q Send-Q Local-Address        Foreign-Address      State
TCP         0      0 203.4.148.180:telnet 203.2.122.69:1834    ESTABLISHED    
TCP         0     33 203.4.148.180:1098   203.4.148.1:telnet   FINWAIT1       
TCP         0     17 203.4.148.180:1078   192.107.41.6:telnet  LASTACK        
TCP         0      0 203.4.148.180:1064   203.4.148.1:smtp     FINWAIT2       
TCP         0      0 203.4.148.180:1051   138.74.0.10:8888     ESTABLISHED    
TCP         0      0 203.4.148.180:1028   203.4.148.1:telnet   FINWAIT2       

This is my net connection in the process of dying. The two TCP connections
that have the data in the Send-Queue will never close. When this happens
my connection slowly decreases in response, getting slower and slower and
slower.

The only cure is (when I get truly sick of the incredible lag) is to 'halt'
and reboot.

Is there any easy way to fix this? I mean, when I have to wait 2 minutes for
my host to respond (at 38400 baud, and we are talking about the host I dial
into) then things are getting damn silly. A few packets, then nothing for
a few minutes, then another page or two, and then another hold up, or a total
freeze which lasts until I exit the application.

When this is happening, pinging my dialup SLIP host will result in lost
packets (about 10 or 20% loss).

Any good ideas?

Dancer (Who has just rebooted)