The solution to my problem was addressed in the read me file that came with 3D
studio and didn't have anything to do with the type of network I was using (I
switched to lantastic which caused the problem to occur with lesser frequency
and let all my machines run in dos all the time) but had to do with the cfig386
settings. I changed the -vdisk and -maxreal settings to the ones recommended in
the file and all my woes were cured. Thanks for the help.