Wow, thanks Tondef. I do have a switch on my home LAN. It's the DSS-8+ D-Link. I'll check if it has this feature, but I doubt it. I don't have identical NIC's either, I was just experimenting with an extra one I had. My first NIC was the OEM 3com that is so raved about, can't remember the actual designation right now. The extra one I had is a Netgear 310TX, which may be the weak link in the chain.
The error I received, which should be no surprise to you because you nailed it, was no IP address found. I don't think what I did actually capitalizes on having 2 NIC's, but by adding IPX protocol on my server and my workstations, at least I now get benchmarks (which not surprisingly are exactly the same as a single NIC). To be honest, I don't really need to use a dual set-up as I only have 2 workstations on my server, and at most during a LAN party will have 8. But I figured as long as I have an extra NIC, I might as well play around a bit