Outlook Express and DUN

Computer is 400 Mhz, 60 MB RAM machine running Windows 98SE.
for Internet Explorer 5 and 6, the DUN dialog box appears as soon as the program loads.
For Outlook Express 5 & 6, it takes approximately 3 minutes for the DUN dialog to show up.
No program has been added or deleted from this computer before the problem started appearing a couple of weeks ago.
There was no anti-virus program installed before the problem. One has been installed since and no virus was found.

Any idea as to what may be causing this delay in loading Dial-up networking dialog. The modem is a 56K modem, internal.

Have tried to unisntall and re-install DUN – no change. have created other dial-up connections, no change.

Any ideas?

thanks

gilles mailhiot