Internet connection causes delayed application start.

[glennl]

I have a problem thats got me beat. Whenever I connect to the internet, any applications I start have a delay or 5 to 10 seconds before they fire up.

OK, on my desktop I have a few text files of code sippets, a link to Access, Dreamweaver, and a few other applications I use to develop web sites. My internet connection is a NextG wireless modem. IP and DNS are automatically assigned by my provider. The PC is running XP SP3, its a dual processor with 1 gig ram.

While I'm off line, whenever I click on the text files, Notepad opens within 1/2 a second, almost instantly, Access and Dreamweaver within 1 or 2 seconds. This is as I would expect.

If I then establish my internet connection, all these applications take 5 to 10 seconds to start, even notepad! Every application has a delayed start. Watching my internet connection, I see a quick burst of out going data when I try to start the application, then nothing. Its almost as though the OS was asking the network for something before it started the application!

While this is happening, apart from the outgoing burst, there is no data transfer through the internet connection, so nothing is flooding the connection. If I fire up IE or FF, I can surf the internet freely.

If I drop the internet connection, the application startup delay returns to almost normal, maybe 2 seconds to start Notepad tops.

The internet connection only has TCP-IP configured, filesharing/printer support is all off. Antivirus and Windows Defender are up to date and report no problems.

Is the OS is looking to the network(internet) for something. Could this be a DNS issue? There are no mapped drives or printers on this machine. Its driving me mad, I open and close applications several times a minute and this delay means I have to drop my internet connection to work at full speed.

Thanks for listening

Glenn

[johnwill]

It sure sounds like the system is checking the Internet for something.

You might try booting in Safe Mode with Networking to see if that still happens. I'd be suspecting something like a security application or perhaps malware.

[glennl]

Good idea, tried it but unfortunately the modem ( nextG ) is USB and with no drivers loaded I couldn't access the device to connect. While I was in there in Safe Mode I checked to see if there were any defunct mapped drives or printers, nothing found.

Glenn

[johnwill]

Try disabling groups of things with MSCONFIG and rebooting. See if you can narrow down some application or service that is causing the issue.