Windows 2000 pro shutdown...

When ever I shutdown my PC it takes an abnormally long time. It stays on the saving settings window for a long time then switches to the shutting down window and sits there for about another 10-15 seconds. It never has done this until about a week ago. I have racked my brain and haven't been able to think of anything that would help. I even updated my BIOS in hopes that that would somehow work. It didn't. I know it's not my specs because my PC is pretty good. I am running:

Asus A7V8X 400 DDR MB
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
40gig Maxtor HD 7200RPM
1024MB PC3200 DDR RAM (running at 333Mhz)
Windows 2000 Professional

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!