Crazy Pings

Lock720

I have a cable modem, and my pings are usually relatively good (200 or lower), but while playing half-life my connection becomes unstable. Basically the ping will show about normal, but when moving or attacking my ping increases by atleast 100. Then every 10-30 seconds my ping will jump so high that the game freezes for a second or two (1000+ ping). I do not experience this with any other game, just half-life and its mods. Weirder still, when I play the CS beta on steam, my ping is low and consistent. Does anyone know why this is happening and what I might try to help the situation? I will list my pc specs below:

AMD Athlon XP 2600+
512 MB DDR 2700 PC333
ATI Radeon 9100 128MB DDR
Windows XP Pro

Sarisel

try changing your rate to 5000 (that's "rate 5000" in console, minus quotation marks)