OT: A computer annoyance - help wanted!

[aegisx]

Renegade 13 said:
For reasons unbeknownst to me, sometimes (but not always) when I connect my computer to the internet via my dial-up modem, it will "lock out" any other programs from opening for a random amount of time. By this I mean once the internet has actually finished dialing and connecting, no other programs will open, then, after a certain (random) amount of time passes, the programs will all open that I had told to open anywhere from minutes to hours ago. In addition, I can tell my computer to shut down, but it will not do so until it decides everything's fine again and ready to work.

Note that this is NOT a general computer lock up. If I open a program (say, Firefox) before the internet establishes its connection, everything's fine and dandy for whatever reason, same goes with any other program.

This problem also doesn't always occur, sometimes I can connect and programs will open immediately. It has me stumped.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to cause or possible solutions? If so, it would be greatly appreciated if you shared 'em! Thanks!

Interesting issue...

Is your CPU at 100% during this frozen time? Atro mentioned it, but I'm not sure if you answered.

My first thought is that the driver is causing the lockup, which is difficult to do anything about. The other guy would be explorer.exe as I believe he is responsible for spawning processes.