internet very slow

I’m using a Dell GX 260 P4 3.0Ghz XP Pro SP2 Desktop with 80g HDD, 512MB Ram, which i recently formated and installed Bitdefender internet S. its is strictly used for office purposes and therefore doesnt have any extra programs other than office, adobe reader,etc. but the problem is, it has a very slow connection, with the outlook, it takes ages to retrieve emails and as for the internet explorer, it takes forever to open a page and at times it doesnt find the site at all untile i refresh it several times. any1 out there with any suggestion on how to solve this delema. am really loosing it. thanks