Just cleared up the problem on my machine, it seems to be network related. I went to system prefs. and chose network then on the second drop down menu "Show:" I chose network port configurations and unchecked everything. Then I restarted and the problem was gone. After re-setting my network port config. which on my machine is just a check for built in ethernet as we have a router that does the sharing of DSL here, I tried another restart and all is well. John Mee 867 MHz PowerPC G4 Mac OS X v. 10.3.6e On Feb 1, 2005, at 12:35 PM, Daniel Read wrote: > > To be clearer, it loads the date/time - battery status - location - > sound, bluetooth, airport all one at a time on a transparent > background and then the finder bar pops in. The dock loads at roughly > the same time and the desktop icons soon after. I can't trace this to > anything that is set to run on start up and I haven't got the airport > or bluetooth ports switched on so the system shouldn't be waiting for > network connections.