David,

>I only have about 10 machines using our system, but they have hundreds of others connected ot their network. Could a simple 10 machine networked system still cause collisions like you mention?

Since the network is new, it could even be something like a mis-configured network card in the server. I've had cases where a brand new HP Netserver machine needed several buffer size settings changed from the default install for the 10/100 server card. That gave problems when loading the network down with large file copies, causing lots of activity (copying files from the old server).

The problems went away by upping the net card buffer settings.

Also, I agree about looking into switches instead of hubs for networks with heavy traffic. Switches are so cheap these days, that it makes no sense to ever go with hubs for database-oriented networks. Intermittent problems losing network connection completely went away at another client when we got a little 5-port switch and connected the server, T-1, and two hubs to it. I'd probably go with all switches if installing it today.