I'm running Excel 2003 on Windows XP Pro SP2 with a dual core PC, 2GB of RAM
and recently I've noticed that Excel will pause for 3-7 seconds after a copy
or paste action regardless of the size of spreadsheet loaded.

For example, in a new spreadsheet with 3 cells populated if I highlight the
3 cells and hit copy, the crawling border appears around the 3 cells but
freezes instantly then the hour glass appears for 3-5 seconds (Excel will not
respond to mouse clicks) and then it unfreezes with the 'crawling ants'
border in motion. If I then move the cursor to the desired target cell and
hit "ENTER", the copied items will appear right away but the hourglass will
also display for 3-5 seconds and Excel will be frozen during that time, after
which I get the standard 'Ready' cursor.

Similar behaviour occurs if I try to move cells - for example if I highlight
a cell and I grasp the border of the highlighted cell to move it to a new
location, the outline can be moved to any target location as it should but
when I release the mouse, Excel will pause, the hourglass will appear for 2-3
seconds and then the values will appear in the target location.

These copy, paste actions were previously instantaneous and I've tried
repairing the installation of Office 2003 (through Office installer) and
resetting options to their defaults, scanning for viruses (none), but the
behviour remains the same for copy, paste actions. Any suggestions are
appreciated.