Weird network problem

[Tim]

Maybe someone has some advise

Host: Win 2000 Server
3 Win 98 guests

NIC IP is: 192.168.1.4
VM Host-only IP is: 172.16.185.1
VM Guests IPs are static ranging from 172.16.185.10-12
DSL router IP 192.168.1.1

DHCP is disabled (though the vmnetdhcp.conf file is still hanging out)
VMNat is disabled
No bridged network
Host only
VM Bridged Network is not checked off on any adapter

Win 2000 Server is a PDC and DNS server

The problem is when I boot Win 2000, I can ping the gateway and any
machine in the network but I can't ping outside of the network (for
instance, I can't ping my ISP or his DNS servers).

If I go into Network connections, choose VMNet1 (host-only) and change
the gateway address, all of a sudden I can ping the rest of the world.
However, once I shutdown and reboot. I get the same problem.

For example, I boot change the VMNet1 gateway addressr to 192.168.1.4.
I'm fine. I reboot and can't connect, so I change the address back to
192.168.1.1 and I'm fine again. But when I rebot I have to change it
back to 192.168.1.4.

Bizarre. But now because a reboot will cause this server to fail, I
can't put it into production.

Help please.

Thanks
Tim