weird problem - freezes for awhile

I have a homemade 1200 athlon, 256 meg computer that has developed a strange problem that I can't seem to remedy. Recently, immediately after turn on and clicking the internet or outlook express shortcut, the computer acts like nothing happened - mouse works but no app startup. 45 or 60 seconds will go by then I hear the drive spinning up, the desktop icons flash (like they normally do when it's booting up) and then the app starts. Then everything works fine?? When the problem first appeared I would click the icon multiple times, then when the computer would wake up, I'd have multiple apps starting.

This only happens on cold start. I have defragged, and done the usual system cleanup stuff, but nothing seems to help. Might be a coincidence, but this seemed to start after I installed DSL - but not right after.

Ideas?

 

Anything suspicious in your event logs?

Try opening task manager first and going to the Processes tab then setting the CPU col. to sort by highest use. Then do the deed and see what is taking over.

It is possible that you have a setting that is causing the system to try to "phone home" when you first hit the internet and it ain't working so pretty good. Try opening a cmd window and doing ipconfig /flushdns before opening the apps.

 

Thanks for the reply Newt. I'll try your suggestions. Not to sound like a total idiot, but how can I get at the event logs?