I just installed NetBSD 1.2 i386 on a Dell OptiPlex GS+ with 128 Mo of
RAM and which has two network adapters : one 3c509 TP on the motherboard
and one 3c590 combo in a PCI slot.

Right now, I just plugged and configured the 3c590 (ep1).

The problem I encounter appears when I telnet to this system, and, for
example, cat a big file (it also appears if I list the content of a
directory which has a lot of files in it of tail -f a file while an
other process is writing to it). The result is that all network activity
to and from the NetBSD box stops (so the telnet session hangs).

Then, the NetBSD box doesn't respond any more to pings and if I try to
ping another system from it, I get the following error :

$ ping venus
PING venus (192.168.17.4): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: No buffer space available
ping: wrote venus 64 chars, ret -1
ping: sendto: No buffer space available
ping: wrote venus 64 chars, ret -1
...

and sometimes :

$ ping venus
PING venus (192.168.17.4): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: Host is down
ping: wrote venus 64 chars, ret -1
ping: sendto: Host is down
ping: wrote venus 64 chars, ret -1
...

The NetBSD box is directly connected to venus with a 10-base 2 link and
it doesn't xmit any packet on the network.

The only way to unlock the situation is to put the interface down then
up again.

Can somone please tell me how I can fix this problem ?

I saw a question related to the same problem in the archive of this list
(file netbsd-help.0006) from Jeff Weisberg <jaw@magoo.roc.ny.us> but it
semms that he had no answer (I did not find any).

thanks

	Stephane