I hope i explain this properly, for about a week now my emails take an age to download. This used to happen very quickly but now it takes about 10 minutes. Is there anyway of correcting this problem without having to re-install outlook. I have all of mcafee products installed on my computer, i used xp. Any help will be much appreciated. Also why i am here is there anyway i can tell what modem is installed on a computer, i do not have any literature on it. Any help would be appreciated.

First, do a Defrag. start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.

If there is no improvement, see this site:

http://insideoe.tomsterdam.com/problems/performance.htm

As to the modem check your Device Manager: Start/Run/ devmgmt.msc > Network Adapters

Another couple of ideas:

Try compacting the Outlook Express database files. To do this, open Outlook Express and go to Tools > Options > Maintenance > Clean Up Now > Compact.

Also, get McAfee to check for the latest updates. Even if it does this automatically every week or so, get it to check again now and download everything that it has available. It may be that you have picked up some virus or malware that is sending out a load of spam emails from your PC each time you check for new messages. It's very unlikely but it only takes a minute to check that your protection is up-to-date.

Have you installed any major update to McAfee about a week ago? Or changed any settings? It may be that there's actually a problem with those changes that are making it take longer to get your messages.

Is the Internet (i.e. web sites) slow to use? It may be that you're seeing email downloads being slow because that's what you use the most .... but the problem might actually be down to the speed of any data going through your modem. Incidentally, D-A-L.com is a very fast web site that will appear quick even on a slow modem. Try going to www.Microsoft.com and see if it takes ages to load up all their big fancy graphics.

Also, if you don't have any joy following Jephree's advice for detecting your modem, try the D-A-L.com Online Hardware Scan (there's a link in my signature).

Let us know how you get on