Thanks - another item I was not aware of. Unfortunately this did nothing to solve the problem, but I guess its good that it is not related, or every PC with an Intel Pro 100/1000 card would be a nuisance for VFP.

>If the NICs have a sleep mode (those I've seen from Dell recently all did, and it was ON) then it can be turned off using System-->Device Manager... and d-clicking on the NIC entry and changing the setting on the Power management tab.