Then again, a cross over cable always comes in handy anyway

Well, a cross-over cable would come in handy, but I'm not sure if Win2k's automatic link detection will play nice with the Receiver.

It's worth a try -- we need to take the router completely out of the equation.

Configure the 2k box for static IP, and try it with a cross-over cable. Alternatively, get hold of a 10Mbps hub from somewhere, and try with that.

I don't know of anyone with a Linksys router, otherwise I'd investigate the DHCP server on that.