WinXP Home edition (hey, I didn't buy it!)...

User shares a road runner connection in her office with approx. eight other users. When she walks away from her pc for any given time and comes back to it...she can't access a webpage...email will not download, etc. She has to reboot the pc for everything to work. I'm going to check the pc this evening (after my day job). I've checked it in the past but it's been a while. I'm fairly certain I checked all power settings before...but I will start there this evening. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Is there something on her internet/network connection that I need to check? Maybe something is timing out? Thanks in advance.