>  I have two 386sx-20 and a 486dx-33 pc's that I am testing NetBSD 0.9p1
[...]
>  The 386's hd 8-bit SMC elite cards.  I kept getting a receiver ring buffer
>overflow error, about every 5 minutes during normal use and about every 30 
>seconds during an NFS transfer.  This would halt network operation until
[...goes on to describe getting 16bit cards, finding same...]

   My "old" 16-bit SMC Elite (without the 790 NIC) gives these errors a
few times per day with no harmful side effects in NetBSD-0.9.  The newer
16-bit SMC cards (with the 790 NIC) do not give me the errors in 
NetBSD-1.0_BETA (and they too perform flawlessly).  There are two
variables changing here, both of which are relevant to the ring buffer
overruns.  Perhaps you should wait and install NetBSD-1.0 when it is
released, and if you still get serious errors, switch to a later rev board.
(By "serious", I mean something other than the occasional log message about
overruns. :) )

Dave Deaven <deaven@ishmael.amslab.gov>