In message <4356070F.4040009@riscworks.net>, Timo Schoeler writes:
>>>>Do you use hardware checksum offload?
>>>
>>>no. it's disabled.
>> 
>> 
>> So that's not the reason. I asked because I had it enabled.
>> 
>> 
>>>(btw: IIRC i had the same issue on a G3 b&w in the office (this runs a 
>>>bm0 NIC then) where i put in some spare NICs (fxp) to circumvent the 
>>>problem. i'll do some reseach when i'm in the office.)
>> 
>> 
>> Is it that bad? My G4 spilled out that message every few minutes and
>> the network connection worked fine.
>
>uhm, i thought it to be noteworthy.
>
>the problem scales with the speed the packets come in/go out:
>
>* downloads from an ftp server outside the LAN (connected with 4Mbps) 
>give no errors;
>
>* transfers with a host in the same LAN at 10Mbps give rarely errors of 
>this kind, but they are there;
>
>* transfers with a host in the same LAN at 100Mbps gives a busy syslogd...
>
>the problem starts immediately, as i already noted, as soon as the ssh 
>handshaking takes place.
>

That sure sounds like a collision problem.  It could be the switch or 
its configuration, it could be a full/half-duplex mismatch (try setting 
that explicitl), or it could be something about the NIC or driver.

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb