thanks for the reply. Only tcp\ip runs on network, or so I thought, I did a ethereal scan and saw printers broadcast ipx packets, so disabled that. I will check the switch for errors as suggested. If I placed a server on a hub and a pc with say ethereal on the same hub and then switch( used by lan) on 3rd port of hub monitoring all traffic between servers and rest of the network, will this cause a performace decrease, also is this the correct way to monitor traffic between the a server and rest of lan.