I understand. But i still have a feeling there's something not quite ok because total commander and dopus both had less issues with this on my machine. This is the one reason i used those other ones because i do prefer mc for several reasons.
I have the same issue with an usb drive, it goes asleep so it takes a bit time to wake up if i access it, but mc sometimes takes a long time, more than is required for the drive to wake up.
If i get impatient on these unresponsive listers and forcibly restart mc, the splash window says 'loading configuration' for awhile.
A month ago i couldn't get mc to start up anymore, it just kept on saying loading configuration. I installed it anew onto another map, and than it worked ok again.
Maybe this is some help? Keep up the great work please.