Popups cause a long delay

I'm running Windows 2000 Pro w/SP4 and it seems that recently, I've noticed that most (but not all) popups cause a noticeable delay right before they come. This happens in IE and with Slimbrowser. I have a modified HOSTS file and I've been experiementing with popup blockers, but this even happens with no blocker loaded.

I have scanned for spyware with Adware and Spybot to remove what little was there, and scanned for viruses using Norton Antivirus which found nothing. Are there any other things that would cause this? Thanks for any help.

 

Run Ad-aware and Spybot from Safe Mode. Also, have you tried the Firefox browser from Mozilla.org?

Likely it is an installed program causing the pop ups, file sharing programs, etc.