If anyone else is having random, weird network stability issues when doing heavy file transfers, make sure you're not using the sky2 driver. I just replaced sky2 with sk98lin, and my Samba server box went from completely unreliable to (so far) rock solid stable. This was after having spent two weeks blaming it on, in succession, the Vista box on the network, the Samba app itself, and the Linux kernel.
This is with the latest kernel, I should add. There are reports all over the 'net about sky2's wonkiness, and it turns out I was just the last to read them. L -DMZ
