Hey Dave - Thanks mate....sorry I haven't replied earlier...you know why. You are quite right of course (and as always ). The response from M$ support indicated the problem may be a setting in BIOS so I delved in for a little bo peep. Sure enough the option was set to 'S1' instead of 'S3'...just changed it to the latter and bingo...all good again.

Now that remains a complete mystery. I cannot swear that it was always set to 'S3' because I had never previously checked the setting but the behaviour when resuming from sleep mode would certainly suggest it was, i.e. waiting for internet, etc. to become active again. The fact that it became instantly responsive after installing SP2 was what alerted me that something had changed in the first place. I do not mess with BIOS and access it rarely and only when absolutely necessary...I am 100% certain no changes were made. That only leaves SP2...yet, I cannot for the life of me see how the update could have changed anything in BIOS...is that possible??

Anyway, all fixed now and Jim is a happy chappy downunder.

cheers mate...JIM

BTW: Completely off subject but I am very happy with my new ISP....didn't realise just how crummy the old one was until the change.