System waiting

[Zhivago]

For some reason it is now taking an extended time for my pc to execute certain instructions. For example, if I am in Outlook 98 and click on a link in one of my incoming msgs, nothing happens for about 25 seconds after which IE 6.0 opens and the appropriate page is displayed. Similarly if I am shutting down my machine, there is the same long pause after I click to shutdown. In this case I get a message asking if I want to wait or end task. If I end task, the system shuts down...or I can just leave the PC & it shuts down on its own after an extended time. I used System File Checker to check for corrupted files but nothing came up. Any suggestions on other things to look for??

[rios__]

Try removing all your startup items. Go to start->run and type msconfig. Then go to the startup tab and uncheck everything. If it is a program that is causing it, this will probably fix it.

Hope this helps.

[christo418]

Have you defragmented your hard drive lately? I would also investigate Device Manager to see if there are any conflicts.

[Zhivago]

I have defragged and Device Manager is not reporting any conflicts. I have not yet tried shutting off the applications that are running in the background to see if one of these is causing the problem. I will likely try that this weekend.