OK, so here’s the deal… The NIC on shiva was working in full duplex. Since it is the only 10/100 NIC on my lan (all the others being just plain ol’ 10s) this was likely a problem. I moved my autosensing switch into the other room, and put the plain ol’ sohoware 10 hub back in here. All seems zippy. Very groovy. Problem solved (I think).