alandd@mindspring.com wrote:
> 
> I don't know the answers to your questions, Victor.
> 
> My suggestion is to avoid the entire issue and setup a 486 without a hard drive running a floppy distro as a firewall/NAT box.  The added power usage is not really much and all these headaches of "will the connection stay alive when someone logs off" go away.
> 
> Ignore or not, as you will.
> 
> Alan


Something else to ignore or not:
Cost to run 100 watts 24X7
= $0.09/kw-hr * 100watts * 1kw/1000watts * 24hr/day * 30day/month
= $6.48/month

Most computers run under 100 watts. 
http://www.howstuffworks.com/power-supply3.htm
says a 300 Mhz Celeron Motherboard consumes 18 watts, and a PCI catd takes
5 watts, so that means your dual NIC firewall will consume under 30 watts,
or $1.94/month.

George