New to Linux so excuse me...

Using RedHat 7.2 and I've had the network stop responding after non-use for a while. Works great on a new boot, but then the next morning, I could not access the network, but a reboot solved the issue. I'm using Linux as a "desktop" to learn on. My DHCP server is actually a WindowsME computer with home network sharing turned on (I know, I know, not a great solution). If it happends again, I can run '/etc/init.d/network restart', but would rather solve the issue that work around it.

Any idea what is going on? If the network card is just going into sleep mode (seen that in other web pages, but no solution), how can I wake it up? Ping just hangs and Mozilla says that the servers cannot be found.

I am having a similar problem with the RedHat 7.3 release. I am using it on a gateway machine connected to the intenet thru a cable modem. The internal network card (eth0) has a static IP. After a while (duration varies between 5 mins and 12 hours) the gateway card is no longer visible to the other computers on the internal network. To fix the problem all I have to do is ping the netowrk card on the linux box!