Does anyone know how to set the browser timeout?

Some versions of Internet Explorer seem to wait for the page to come across a lot longer than others.

I have a web server that sometimes can take a while to return back the full page. On IE 5.0, it waits patiently until it is complete, showing the top of the page and later filling in the rest (using javascript).

On newer IE's though, it flashes the top of it for a moment, then replaces it with the "Page not found" message (or whatever it says).