I have a NetGear FA311 NIC, and was using the Microsoft WinXP driver (there is no WinXP driver on NetGear's site.) I did download the FA311 Driver Set v1.8 anyhow and forced WinXP to use an 'Unsigned' Driver and tested it on the same fast DCC bot.
Result: at the same point it was freezing my system before, now it simply loses connection to the internet (the transfer drops to zero, and I can't browse or anything, have to disable/enable the NIC in Network Connections.) Because of this, I'm going to buy a new (read different) NIC right away and let you know if that fixes the problem. If everything works fine after that, I think we can say "DO NOT USE NetGear FA311 with mIRC."
Thx for the quick reply,
Han
