Win98 slow connecting to database on XP Pro

I have an open source database, Firebird, running on an
XPPro machine. The clients are two XP Pros, 1 W2K, and 3
Win98.

All the machine connect to the database at an acceptable
speed except 2 of the Win98 machines. On these two, the
first connection of the day is ok, but after that it gets
very slow.

sometimes, it will say, cannot connect, db not open, but
if you then click immediately on the client program again,
it will connect. Its like a timeout problem. Has any one
experience with this?

Dixon Epperson