>>This is WAY out in left field, but what make/model of mouse are you using, and what is the author and version of the mouse driver?
>
>Al,
> at this point nothing is too Way Out. The mouse is the standard Microsoft Intelimouse with the wheel that came with the Dell PC.

I have a client that ordered a bunch of new Dell PCs. They run long reports in a DOS accounting package which they like to process in the background as they do other stuff in Word, Excel, etc. They found that these machines were suspending DOS background tasks (rather than multitasking them) regardless of all the settings they tried.

We eventually found the problem: the version 8.02 driver for their Logitech mice. Updated to version 9.0, problem solved.

>
>By the way I have been doing some more tests:
>
>If a table is open noupdate by another pc the Dell can open it with no problem if the table is not in a DBC. If the table is in a DBC then there is a 3 second delay that I assume is caused by opening the DBC.

This sounds *exactly* like what Erik experienced a while back with his client. A lot of ideas were put forth in that thread.

If the network card is a 3Com (either add-on or on motherboard), remove or disable it and replace with a generic D-Link or NetGear unit and see if that makes a difference.