spoolsv problem

one of my customers has a machine running winxp pro and office xp. when the spoolsv is started, the machine is very slow and outlook will not even retrieve mail. if i stop the service then all programs run fine. spoolsv shows in the task manager as using 99% of the cpu power. what is going no here? the machine is a pent 2+ ghz with 512 megs registered sdram. i have tried everything i can think of to no avail. i am sure in my single minded way i am missing something.