help with recv()'ing

Hello
I've done a while loop with select (on my winsock 1.1 socket) to ensure that the entire data length to be taken during a receive is gotten, however, I ran into a problem - when my connection is lagged, I tend to lose data and am unable to get it because receives done with the select()'ed socket occur too quickly before the server can send data back to my email client. I need to get all the data the server sends me when it sends me, despite the fact that I'm lagged. Is there a way I can variably wait until the data arrives? What method would I use to wait in this manner? And how would I determine if there's still data on the server side waiting to be sent?

Thanks!

sinorev