Cannot Setup Workgroup Or Domain On Home Network.

Here is interesting problem that has plagued me for over a year. I have a small network at home that I have not been able to setup a reliable network on in the past year and half. Sometimes I can see the other computers sometimes I cannot. It is really really weird. I have setup a million networks over the past few years and have never run into anything like this.

I have several machines (usually 5-10 workstations) running XP pro, Corp, win 2k and win 2k server. I have also tried it with just a few XP machines. I have 6 dynamic IPs 2 routers (Linksys befsr41 4 port with latest firmware) a WAP (Apple base station) and a 3com 12 port Superstack hub (cable connection going into port 12 with a standard cat 5 cable and the hub set to MDI).

Now at its most basic I have had 4 machines hooked up to the hub (with connection coming from cable modem) all systems running XP Corp with a simple workgroup setup (MSHOME). In this configuration I have gotten 4 machines to at least all see each other. However file sharing would work off an on (usually off) sporadically usually between only one or two machines.

Recently I setup 2000 server on one of my machines (as a file ftp and web server) and also setup a domain. Now when I try and join the domain sometimes it works (on different machines same thing happens) and other times it does not (very much like the workgroup issue). With several different error messages including:

"The following error occurred attempting to join the domain "mydomain" "The network path could not be found"

Another error message I get is ""The following error occurred attempting to join the domain "mydomain" "The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted"

Yet another "A domain controller to the domain "mydomain" could not be contacted." Ensure that the domain name is typed correctly" "If the name is correct click details for troubleshooting"

Its really weird and has been bugging me for over a year. I have not a clue as to what could be causing the problems as it has happened with completely different hardware and software configurations. (makes me think it is a connection issue)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.