I have just recently installed win98SE on an older 566mhz IBM, 256MB SDRAM, with a Netgear FA311 NIC. I'm attempting to network it through a dlink router (DI-604) along with one other Windows XP computer. So far I've gotten it online (I can tell from 'ipconfig /all'), however it loads webpages extremely slow and the connection isn't even strong enough to sign on AIM; it's unusable. This problem computer is downstairs, while the router and cable modem are upstairs, so we used a 100ft cat5e cable to connect it to the router. When I plug this computer directly in to the modem everything works fine, I downloaded AIM at about 150kb/sec (normal for our cable), so I figured the 100ft of cat5 alone wasn't the problem. Right now I'm suspect that maybe the 100ft cable in combination with the router is degrading the signal. However, I'm dying to know if anyone knows of any common (or un) 98 SE symptoms which could be producing this problem. Thanks

The slowness of internet download seems to be related to the D-Link Router 604. As you guessed the length of the CAT5 cable is not the cause of degrading signal received by the modem. Have you done any Firmware upgrade for the D-Link 604 Router? If the problem persists after that and any other Firewall troubleshoot in the Win98 PC, consider a different Cable/DSL Router

That router works well, so unless you have done something strange to it in the setup (or you have gotten a defective one) I'd suspect the cable not the router -- have you tried connecting the PC to it with another cat5 cable? If so, have you tried a reset of the router to factory defaults?