Hello. I'm posting here as a last resort... I [& my MCSE friend] are
completely stumped.

I have a 3 computer LAN at home, running win95, 98, & NT. I keep getting
BSOD's on one of the machines when it's running 95. It typically happens
during file transfers, especially with 10+ Mbytes or more. I've tried this
w/ multiple methods: the 95 machine as the initiator seems most stable, vs.
if the 98 machine initiates the transfer. I've also tried with
directly-mapped drives, vs. surfing thru network neighborhood. No dice,
still crashing.

This doesn't happen when that box is running NT, but I need that machine to
run 95, b/c NT won't run the apps I need. I haven't tried that particular
M/B / processor w/ 98, b/c I've found 98 creates massive amounts of
collisions during file-transfers, where 95 & NT do not [my hub has lights
for collisions]. Also 98 is a resource dog, and that machine is only a p233.

Here's the kicker-- when I re-set the NIC on that [crashing] 95 machine,
knocking it down from 100Mb/s to 10Mb/s, it crashes much less often.
However, this is the second NIC w/ this behavior; currently I've got a 3com
905B, and I used to have an Intel EtherexpressPro 100+ (which seemed to
crash even more often).

Also, that machine is perfectly stable w/ 95 when it's NOT on the network,
so this seems to be network related. I'm running TCP/IP network, w/ subnet
255.0.0.0 and gateway 9.9.9.9.

Hardware:

Machine1: [crashes w/ win95]        ip 9.9.9.2
win95
asus txp4 [bought new, 1yr ago]
pentium 233MHz
3C905B Etherlink XL at 100Mbit [but now set to 10Mbit]
Hercules Dynamite ET4000 2mb pci
AHA-2940U pci
WDC 10gig & 5 gig ide
Maxtor 6gig
creative sb16 isa


Machine2: [lots of collisions]        ip 9.9.9.1
win98
abit bx6 rev2.02 [bought new, 1/2 yr ago]
celeron 300A at 300MHz or 464MHz
3C905B Etherlink XL at 100Mbit
Creative Exxtreme 4mb Permidia 2 pci
Dynamite Monster 3DII [voodoo2] 12mb pci
Promise Fasttrak ide raid pci
AHA-2940UW pci
WDC Expert 18gig 2mb buffer ide
2x WDC Enterprise 4gig UW
various maxtor, ibm, wdc ide drives; total of 7 drives
creative sb32 'awe' isa


Machine3: [very stable]        ip 9.9.9.3
win95, winNT
asus sp97-v [bought used]
pentium 200MHz
3com Etherlink III pci
Diamond s3 virge 2mb pci
AHA-2940A
WDC 2gig ide


network hardware:
3com NICs in each machine
Netgear [Bay Networks] DS-104 4port switching 100/10Mbit hub
MonsterCable 6ft 100Mbit-rated CAT5


...This is definitely network-related, since Machine1 works fine when it's
not on the network. Is it a 95 <--> 98 connectivity issue? Perhaps a win95
100Mbit issue? I haven't tested 100Mbit connectivity between two 95
machines, b/c I don't have a 100Mbit NIC for machine3, & I'd rather not
blow-away my 98 installation (machine2) at this time.

My friend told me NetBEUI is a superior protocol, faster, more-mature, etc.
[but we've both heard rumors about its exploitability viz. the Net]. Could
NetBEUI solve this? How does one set it up?

Thanks.

David

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