What I'm saying, is try an independent non IRC program that uses the internet to try to determine if it is indeed the connection that's dropping, or just something on IRC that looks like it's dropping. I had a period of about 2 months where it appeared that my internet was dropping, as I was losing my IRC connection, but after checking with my ISP and using what I suggested, I was able to determine that it wasn't my internet dropping, just my IRC.
