I have a triple homed system (a Dell GX270 w/512MB RAM running Windows 2000 Pro SP4 fully patched): the built-in (onboard) NIC is connected to our production network, the second NIC (a 3C900B combo RJ45/BNC card) is connected to one device via BNC cable (this device is controlled via direct IP communication to the MAC address or the device's network card) and the third NIC (a 3C900B TPO card) is connected to a second device via Intel 5 port hub, and receives its' IP address via bootp (server resident on the PC).

The problem is this: The bootp server is supposed to receive an IP address request from the 2nd device upon device bootup, which it does without issue provided the production network is disconnected OR the NIC is disabled. When the production network is enabled, the resident bootp server sees requests from other similar devices on the network. The bootpserver, having been configured to respond only to requests from the 2nd device's MAC address, rejects all of these foreign requests, but in doing so cannot process the one request which it SHOULD be responding to. Today, the bootp requests were coming in at such a rate that the CPU utilization approached 100%.

The bootp server is from Agilent and should be associated only with the third NIC. Is there a way to isolate the bootp server? Is there a way to prohibit what looks to be LAN bridging? The Routing and Remote Access service is disabled.

Any and all assistance tou might be able to give me would be appreciated.