Delay Before Network Connection Is Active

[Burritonator]

One of our G5s (running OSX 10.3.9) seems to have developed a problem where its network connection does not become active until 30-60 seconds after OSX starts up following a restart. The reason this is an inconvenience is because we have several network drives in the Startup Items on the system, but they fail to automatically reconnect after a restart since the network connection isn't active yet when the system processes the Startup Items. Note that we have several other Macs running 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5 that connect to the same network drives but don't have this problem.

Can anyone suggest what I might do to troubleshoot why the network connection doesn't activate more quickly when OSX starts up? Alternatively, is there a way to manually force the system to process the startup items again after the network connection activates so the user doesn't have to manually reconnect to all of the network drives?

Thanks

[Jay Carr]

Hmm... a couple things come to mind. First, go to your accounts preference pane and check the start up items list. If there's a bunch of junk there you might consider removing some of it, it could be hogging the processor.

Also, as is normally suggested around here, make a second user (from scratch) and see if you get the same problem when you boot into that login. Then report back on your findings.

[cwtnospam]

Is there something ahead of the network connection you're using in Network preferences (show network port configurations)? For example, if you have Airport checked off and at the top, but are using ethernet, there will be a delay while the system waits for Airport to fail before using Ethernet.