Taz,
Can you tell me the exactly your settings on the network settings page? (except password of course)

Are you connecting directly to 1 pc or thru a network or hub?

Are you using DCHP or manually assigned IP addresses.

I still can't see my machine hard drive on the network and file transfer is sporatic at best.

Thanks, Joe V.

Maybe this could help:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21083

But you should put a static DHCP client for your machine in the hub/router config so everytime the router would update adresses, the same will be given to the machine.