ive read most of the thread, yet not all. forgive me as i might have missed some of this below in helping... carlopmart, what is in your /etc/resolv.conf is it configured correctly? are you using ipv6? if not, is it fully disabled / turned off? in modprobe.conf put alias net-pf-10 off alias ipv6 off reboot... also, are you loading those other opsys on the same machine and getting good results or different machines? testing other opsys on different hardware could be problematic. did you bother to check the physical ports to see if any problems in the switch or with ethtool on the server interface ? thoughtfully consinder following advise of others re: tcp and dns cables... - rh