Hello all. I seem to be having a problem with my logon speed.
I have 2 ethernet cards in both of my PCs. I use one card on each PC to connect to the internet via a router, and this setup is fine. But I recently connected my PCs together using the other ethernet cards and a crossover cable. My main PC is fine and has not changed, but the other PC has one little problem. With the crossover cable plugged in my other PC hangs on "loading your personal settings" for about 2 minutes. When I unplug the crossover the logon goes in about 12 seconds.

Any advice is muchly appreciated.

Thank you,
Alex

I'm slightly confused by your setup here.
I'm at a loss to try to understand WHY you are not only using a ROUTER, but cross over connection as well.
The whole purpose of the router is for your network.
All your file and print sharing can be done with this connection and NOT over a cross over.

It's hardly surprising that the cross over is causing problems as you are confusing the network setting of your machine as it doesn't know where to route data.

Here's a couple of How-To's for networking
Wired networking Guide (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/setup/wired.mspx)
Wireless Networking Guide (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/wirelesssetup.mspx)
Should give you some more ideas.

Remember the KISS Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_principle).