Yes, confirms it's being caused by some third party application, so now to find out what

You can do this using the Selective Starup option in the System Configuration Utility

I would suspect anti-virus / security software to start with

In reply to a post by nredwood:

Yes, confirms it's being caused by some third party application, so now to find out what

You can do this using the Selective Starup option in the System Configuration Utility

I would suspect anti-virus / security software to start with

I went through the list of installed software and removed some possible culprits:

tbbloader
Nokia connectivity software.
Malwarebytes.

That seems to have cured it. My guess is that it's the last one on the list.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

.... My guess is that it's the last one on the list...

I'd like to see that confirmed.
TBBLoader is the obvious one as it's a networking tool but the Nokia software rings a bell (No pun intended) somewhere in the back of my mind.

Nokia Connectivity software causes similar problems for me

If I don't exclude NokiaMServer.exe from starting up, it causes very similar issues

I do recall it and some other 'phone software causing problems. IIRC, Logitech software is or was another headache.

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

In reply to a post by Andrue:

.... My guess is that it's the last one on the list...

I'd like to see that confirmed.
TBBLoader is the obvious one as it's a networking tool but the Nokia software rings a bell (No pun intended) somewhere in the back of my mind.

Nope, seems just as bad this morning :-/

I'll see how it goes but I might have been premature. Then again Avast gave me a virus warning. At the time I was access these forums, the BBC news site and my email. I'm thinking it was the email from Dominos last night :-/

Edited by Andrue (Sun 19-Feb-12 07:59:06)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

[Nope, seems just as bad this morning :-/

I'll see how it goes but I might have been premature. Then again Avast gave me a virus warning. At the time I was access these forums, the BBC news site and my email. I'm thinking it was the email from Dominos last night :-/
[/quote]Hmmm. Fine again now. So I might have fixed it

If it reappears, keep an eye on events with tools such as Netstat etc and look for patterns.

Hah!

I had another go with Wireshark and spotted some SMB2 traffic between laptop and server. The laptop was reconnecting to a share. Turns out the laptop had a hidden drive mapping (which is a new one on me - NET USE showed it but it didn't appear in My Computer). I've deleted that and so far it's looking promising. I've had issues with SMB over the years and generally avoid it. I don't know what created that drive mapping but it wasn't me - I'd rather use UNC paths and this may be yet another example of why.

Is this any particular implementation of SMB that's been installed by you or are you referring to the usual Windows networking?
Either way, if the mapping can't be explained, a complete in depth malware scan may be in order. You can download the Kaspersky Rescue CD here. It's an ISO so simply burn it, boot from it, update it and run it. Fix and note anything that's found.