My computer running a very recent FreeBSD release 5 is connected to the internet with "3Com 3c980C Fast Etherlink XL" to a cable modem connected to Mediacom. I connect with the command "dhclient xl0". The problem I have is that every so often the mediacom connection goes down, and when it comes up again, the computer seems unable to connect with the outside world. Yet if I do "killall dhclient;dhclient xl0" it happily connects sufficiently well to get itself an IP address from the mediacom dhcp server, but it does not seem able to pass any other kind of internet info, e.g. ping, nameserver, ssh, etc. However rebooting the computer completely solves the problem. It is as if the IP software gets stuck in some weird mode, and seems unable to get out of it. Anyone got any ideas? I'll provide more details about the system if that will help. Thanks, Stephen