Notepad really slow if Network is not disabled

[Ed Monk]

I have a really weird problem. If my network is enabled,
everytime I do something for example, double clicking on a
text file, or doing a file/properties, the traffic on my
router starts blinking like crazy and it can take up to a
minute for properties to appear, or for notepad to open a
file. If I turn off the network, my PC runs normally. Its
not the computer, a 2.54ghz P4 and a 100mhz hub. I did
have it at one time hooked to a windows 2000 server that
acted as a DHCP but its long gone, and the router is now
the DHCP.

Any suggestions?
I have XPpro, SP2, and every hotfix that has come out for
XP recently.

 

[v2nbate]

Lets see...
how about if you open wordpad..
could we possibly rextract notepad.ex_ from the i386 dir?
one thing you could test to see if it was notepad.exe that
was corrupted is extract a new copy from the i386 to a non
system directory like:

expand notepad.ex_ C:\notepad.exe and then actually open
up the file from there.

My other thoughts are clean booting, disabling both non
microsoft services and all startup items thru msconfig
(start / run / msconfig)

also possibly posting a hijackthis log might prove useful
(http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/HijackThis.exe)

if you don't know how to use it, follow:
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/htlogtutorial.html