agentc0re thanks for the reply, I've tried everything I could think of, I even purchased a netgear switch but no luck so I reinstalled 7.04 and everything works just fine. I did keep the switch so now my network looks like this.. core eth0 internal NIC to cable modem, core eth1 external NIC to netgear DGS2208 switch. I also plugged my office desktop, network printer and workshop computers into this switch and everything works great.
Im just baffled as to why 7.01 beta 4 does not work, I'll try the final release later.....
Thanks