Slow to establish network connections.

This is an odd one, and not easy to explain.
PC runs fine, in fact its nice and fast. Has no virus issues, runs clean in any scan from NOD, Malwarebytes, Combofix etc etc etc. Never had an infection as far as I can see. Once up and running, internet speed is fine, network speed is fine.
Its the getting up and running that is the problem. It boots into windows quite quickly. The machine can be used, and is fast, for any application.
EXCEPT anything to do with networking/internet. For example, try and open IE, and you just get a blank IE screen - not even a message saying detecting etc.
Try and open network places, and no window. Even just hanging the cursor over Connect to - Show All Connections hangs.
Then. After 2/3 mins, anything network related you have tried to open pops up. All of a sudden internet and network is fine. Away you go, with no other issues.
If you then make it show the network connection icon in the toolbar, it will cause the toolbar to freeze at next boot up until the 2/3 mins lag, then it appears. At that time, everything is fine.
I have changed the network adapter. Removed TCP/IP and reinstalled. Run hijack this, reset IE, run latest updates, run Bootvis (which tells me the machine is fully booted up but doesnt see the 2/3 mins lag).

Help. Please........

If that is a standard PCI slot card, have you tried another slot?

Original was o/b, but have tried PCI 3Com and an SMC USB/Enet adapter just for good measure.

What make/model of motherboard?

MSI K8M Neo-V ver 1.0 latest BIOS.

Memtest clear.
HDD test clear.
cpu test clear.

If using Vista, are you using the native Vista drivers for ethernet?

Have you tried using a manually assigned ip address?

XP Pro. I have tried manually assigning, but the delay is still there.

Well, if onboard and add-on perform the same way, and since you get delayed access to things that don't require an active connection, I think it's a software OS problem.

Try either a System Restore (if this problem is recent) or a Repair Install.

I am loathe to do a repair install, as the PC works perfectly other than this. I would far sooner get to the bottom of it and find out what is causing it.
It would be all too easy to take it back and tell the customer they have to wait for the network toolbar icon to appear before they go online, and I am sure they would accept that, but I want to find out why, as I have never seen this problem before.

So the machine is set to get an ip via dhcp? May be it's having a problem finding the network... firewalls come to mind as do gateways not easily found
Can you do a ipconfig /all and paste it?
Have you tried entering just the gateway in the tcp/ip settings?

Hi Noo Noo

Nothing unusual in ipconfig. File attached.

Yes, I tried using the gateway in tcp/ip.

I have now spoken to the customer, who is happy with it as it is, but thats not the point, I want to fix this now!

attached where?

I have now tried everything I can think of, as have the other guys from here too. We are all baffled. The only thing we can think of is that some service is slow firing up, but cannot find what. If no-one can come up with any suggestions, we will have to take it back as it is.

Have you tested in safemode with networking?

One of the lads here has cracked it. He decided to try disabling various services at start up one at a time then rebooting. After he stopped Net Driver HPZ12, all was well again. The customer doesnt have a HP network printer, and to the best of my knowledge never has, so where it came from is anyones guess. There is no HP printer software installed.
But thanks for the help........

Aah it was looking for the printer... you can turn off having it look for network devices each time...

All done, thanks.

Turns out the customers son bought them a HP 6180 network printer last year as they also have a laptop. He couldnt get it working, so took it back and bought an Epson. Never uninstalled the software, and didnt tell us!

Oh that snippet of info would have been sooo useful... still all done

Such is life! Thanks Noo Noo.