HELP!!!!

I am about to give up on geeking because this is driving me insane.

I had a lovely network set up with a 'nix box running RH8 and my windows box networked to it. My XP box then bluetoothed up to my lappy giving a wireless connection. Then the hdd in my 'nix box failed, sooooooooooo...

I got a new hdd, installed RH9 set up the network to my XP box and disabled (and now uninstalled) all the bluetooth stuff.

The problem is, my windows box keeps randomly losing connectivity. My Linux box never loses connectivity. I've figured out if i disable and then enable the network connection (in network connections on my windows box) my connection comes back straight away.

I have a firewall on my 'nix box but not on my windows box (all checked and triple checked), i have tried everything i can think of. There seems to be no pattern when it happens, sometimes i can stay up for hours and hours, sometimes i lose connectivity numerous times in 10 mins.

I have a feeling it's something to do with the security internet options - it seems to happen (more) when i'm browsing in IE (because the pages won't open in Opera), i set all security and program options to default last night (when i hit a page that seemed to be disconnecting me) and it worked fine, and i REALLY thought i'd fixed it, but this morning it just bloody did it again, and again, and again.

Any hints or ideas or sympathy (!) would be really welcomed.

The only thing that's changed is i'm using RH9 and not RH8. Is it an issue with RH9? (i can't see it as my 'nix box seems fine).

Just wanted to add this, before i had my linux box i bought a router and the exact same thing happened with that, i would randomly lose connectivity to the net and the router. I eventually gave up on the router and got myself a 'nix box (it's sitting in my geek drawer unused).

Toni // angelic