Which NICs would be best.

I have 2 PCs and would like to set up a network at home.

I have a 3com etherlink (ISA) I've been using for a while and 2 other
PCI NICs, sitting unused, based on the
RealTek 8029 chipset. Currently, the 3com is used with my cable-modem.
I tried installing either of the 8029 NICs and upon booting made my
win98 partition unstable. Each time I would boot I would get about as
far as the login window and soon after the machine would reboot. I
took
them out and then had to search for new hardware in w98 to get my 3com
nic to work again. I suppose if I'm determined to create this network
I'd better buy 2 new nics that won't fight eachother.
Any you would recommend???