[Python-Dev] Imports very slow on one NT4 system - any idea what to check for

I helping a friend get up to speed with Python. He has installed the ActiveState 2.1.1 on a number of machines. All run nice and fast except for one machine. It is one of group of identical desktop Dual 866MHz PIII systems with 1G RAM, SCSI hard drive running Windows NT4.0/SP6a. Importing getopt, re, sys, string and os takes 7 seconds. Using python -v just shows a uniform slowness, all files are slow. python -vv he tells me did not show a particular slow spot. His laptop Crusoe 700MHz machine, 192MB, IDE hard drive runs the same imports in 1.1 seconds. I've asked that he checks the python -v output to make sure that the .pyc files are being loaded and not the .py. Any idea what else to check for? Barry