Hi,
Just to follow up on my own post, the problem is
way down in the network driver layer, specifically
in the ibmtr driver - it seems to be happy with 2.2,
and barfs with 2.4 - for now I replaced it with an
IBM pci card (olympic driver) and 2.4 is now solid
on the machine that had serious problems using
the isa token ring card.
I'l have a look at ibmtr if nobody beats me to it.
jjs