How about:

..
..
$SIG{ALM} = \&timed_out;
eval {
    alarm(5)
    #socket code here
};

if ($@=~/dead/) {
    #time out handling here
}
alarm(0);
..
..
sub timed_out{
    die "dead";
}
[download]

From there you can do whatever handling you like (and should prolly change the 5 to something like $timeoutValue)