After upgrading from Mandrake 9.1 to Mandrake 9.2 connecting Outlook XP to my pop3 QPopper 4.0.5 server has suddenly become very slow and even unreliable. Connecting to the QPopper server from Outlook XP takes approximately 30 seconds even though network or CPU's are close to idle. If I telnet to the server on port 110 it takes the same time before the expected QPopper prompt apears. Its seems that the 30 seconds delay is consistent as if the connection always entered into a wait that times out after 30 seconds.

This problems surfaces only when I run any of the 2.4.22 kernels. If I swtich back to the 2.4.21 kernel of Mandrake 9.1 the problem is gone.

I turned off reverse DNS and I tried to apply some Qpopper Outlook XP patch without success. My /etc/hosts should be fine anyway, so I do not believe it is a reverse DNS problem. Why should it work with the previous kernel?

Any good ideas?