Last night I was about to install an i386 on my ThinNet. Prior to this, I
had my Mac Quadra 610 running MacOS, an old Mac IIcx running MacOS, and an
i386 running NetBSD-current. All worked pretty well.

I unplugged the i386, which acts as a router, and removed the terminator.
Then I added a length of cable, and plugged the terminator into the end of
that. (Well... Actually, I put another T connector on the end, for the new
machine, and plugged the terminator into *that*.)

Now, nothing works. The IIcx on one end of the chain doesn't report errors,
but the Quadra says, helpfully, "there's an error" and refuses to see its
net connection. The i386 gives me "we0: device timeout". The new i386, when
booted from an install floppy, gives me the same thing. I didn't have all
the machines powered down when I removed the terminator, but I can't believe
that the things are that fragile. If they were, organizations would have to
buy new network cards for all their machines every time a wire accidentally
got chopped, and the medium would have died out long ago. (Well, okay, maybe
it *has* already died out, but it's what I've got!)

I've tried isolating the i386 and my Quadra with a T connector and two
terminators, but both give me the same errors, regardless of the presence
or lack thereof of others machines on the wire.

This is baffling. I've tried connections with two arbitrary machines on the
wire with no luck.

This acts like all the machines torched their EtherNet controllers all at
once, but I find this to be an implausible explanation. One interesting
fact is that I got the same message on the Quadra when first attempting to
wire the machinery together, back when it was just the Quadra and the IIcx.
I gave up in disgust after a while, and left the whole mess sitting there,
connected but unused. A few days after that, I tried using the EtherNet so
that I could show the error to a friend, and it worked. It's worked reliably
for a month or two now, and I was able to add in an i386 to use as a router
with no problems.

What can cause these "device timeout" messages? I'm not getting any other
errors, and "device timeout" isn't quite detailed enough for me to guess what
might be going on with any measure of assurance.

Thank you for help and/or advice. None of this seems even slightly logical
to me, and I've run out of possible solutions.

-- 
Mason Loring Bliss...mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us...www.webtrek.com/mason
"In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams build their nest with fragments
 dropped from day's caravan."--Rabindranath Tagore...awake ? sleep : dream;