I actually have two questions:

Please note it seems that the hardware is functioning fine.

1. I am having problem with a laptop that is very slow. The problem
actually begins when I try to double click on anything on the system.
Examples of what I am referring to will be clicking on the start menu,
accessing my computer icon or what ever; it takes about 5 or more
minutes to open. I tried different things like defragmentation without
success.

Laptop: Toshiba, T8100
System: NT 4
RAM: 128MB
CPU: P3 700MHz 

2. With the second laptop (compaq: Evo N600c). I am trying to connect
to a network remotely using a AVM Fritz ISDN card but keep getting the
message that the port is in use. However, when I cross check I see
that the port is not in use. The driver for the card is installed and
RAS is correctly configured.

Laptop: Compaq, Evo N600c
System: NT 4
RAM: 256MB
CPU: P4 1GHz

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 13 Apr 2004 13:13 PDT

math01...

You may get better results by splitting up these two disparate
questions. I could likely help with question 1 but not with
question 2.

As for question 1, I strongly suspect a virus or something
similar. Have you run antivirus software and programs which
sniff out adware and malware?

sublime1-ga

I have had this same problem a few times under windows Xp
professional. I managed to get around it a very odd way. I downloaded
an update to Internet explorer
(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/ie6sp1/default.asp),
the update did enough to my system to get it back to normal. I have
had it happen twice, I believe that it is something to do with
explorer.exe (the main visual element of windows). If it shuts down
badly this problem normally occurs on the restart afterwards.