Hi,

If you believe M$, SP4 is supposed to make Win2000 MORE stable

The behaviour you describe is typical of a machine infested with malware, so I would certainly give it the scans mentioned.

How much (%) free hard disk space have you? A shortage of disk space is also likely to produce those symptoms. You really should have 20% free or better, or defragmentation will not work properly. Speaking of which...........when did you last defragment it?

This is best done in safe mode, as is the malware scanning. I would suggest that you schedule some downtime for "essential maintenance"................yeah, yeah, I can hear the whining already, but it will make life easier

Good luck mate!

EDIT: The compression utilities in datamases and mailing systems don't work properly if you don't have enough free space, either. This will produce quite dramatic performance degeneration as well.