[Masq] MASQ Clients going down

[Sam]

Greetings       I successfully enabled ipmasq on a red hat 7.2 box running the 2.4.16 kernel. I would like to thank those have contributed to the most excellent ipmasq HOWTO at ipmasq.cjb.net. The one annoying problem i seem to be encoutering is that my masq client (windows XP professional) will loose connectivity intermittently to the masq server and internet.. i do not know the cause for this, it is perplexing me. In order to resolve i am having to /etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart  then doing /etc/rc.d/rc.firewall   masq functinality resumes but then will go down again anywhere from 5-20 min later   the rc.firewall script is the same exact one from the HOWTO. connectivity from the masq server to the Internet does NOT go down only the clients do.   masq server using 3COM Etherlink NIC for eth0 external interface - verizon DSL - dhcp netgear NIC for eth1 for internal interface   masq Clients windows XP professional using realtek NIC   any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. let me know if anymore info is needed   thanks everyone keep up the good work !