Hi folks, here's a situation and a slew of symptoms:

Belkin 3-port wireless router
Hardwired G3 minitower running Panther
this is my fileserver -- 4 40GB volumes
Hardwired PC running XP, usually asleep
Airport equipped iBook running Panther
Airport equipped eMac running Panther
this is my main work computer

All computers have a manually established IP so that DHCP doesn't switch
numbers on me if (when) the cable goes out.

Now the symptoms:

1) Occasional network slowdowns, bigtime. Like, I'll be transferring
files from the fileserver, and the transfer rate drops to almost
nothing. Believe it or not folks, a dying network can crash Panther. If
you try to quit the transfer, the Finder hangs and cannot be relaunched.

I suspect this is something funky about the router, as it generally
occurs after making a network change (like changing an IP address), and
it is alleviated by resetting the router. That Belkin trash has always
been a tad flaky.

2) This is the one that drives me nuts: Now and then my fileserver just
seems to drop off the network for no reason. I have to sit and wait for
the Finder to discover that it has disconnected, which takes a couple
minutes. When I go back to reconnect, however, some volumes often will
not reconnect. They are listed as volumes I can connect to, but they
just will not come up -- no error, just no volume.

The solution to this one is usually to reboot the fileserver, which
seems kinda dumb, 'cause we are talking about Panther here, which in my
experience, is rock solid. I don't really want to have to trot down the
stairs to reboot my fileserver twice a day.

Any thoughts?

stedae