samba - May 2000 - Connection between Windows2000 and Samba 2.0.7 drops after ~2500 files

I am running Samba 2.0.7 on RedHat 6.1 (2.2.14-12 kernel). My client is 
Window2000.

Everything seems to be working fine in my network (I can browse, make 
connections, etc., etc.). However, under heavy use I find that I
"drop" a
connection between my Windows2000 machine and Samba. It happens predictably 
after about 2000 to 2500 files.

If, for example, I make a connection as in:

net use z: \\sabino\share /USER:user

and then

d:>xcopy *.* z: /S

Everything starts out OK. About 2,000 files are transferred and then I get 
the error message:

File creation error - The network path was not found.

If I do a

net use

I see that the connection to Z: is reported to be "disconnected".

I drop it with

net use z: /d

and then I can reconnect again (usually, sometimes I have to wait a while 
before I can make the connection again).

I started the daemons with

./nmbd -D
./smbd -D

from the /bin directory (so I am not using inted).

Any suggestions on what I should try to debug this? Or is this a bug to be 
reported to the development team?

Regards,

Randy Kahle