In the end, I installed 4 different NICs all of which worked but all of which prevented a second card being loaded. After over 10 hours, I decided that this had made the small move from being a challenge to being an obsession. I gave up and put the Win98 CD in to restore it.
Imagine how I felt as the CD drive that the Debian CD choked on worked flawlessly - creaking 2-speed brute! The cards installed flawlessly on the same IRQs that failed under Linux. Its a real choker that these old boxes were made to run Win3.11 and are still Win98s home patch. Thanks to all who offered help. To my surprise, when I returned the box to its owner, he got quite upset and has given me another PC and three hundred pounds to do this one over the weekend. Quite a result...I'll mess up more often perhaps! Thanks again to all.... Patrick
