Hey Nick

I know some people have issues with IDCC, but it works ok for me. It's still beta alright, and it seems will be forever, but so far looks good. The guys at Intel must clean the house alright, every new version is better but there's always something... even the install paths keep changing. Maybe with the new BIOS revision coming up IDCC gets it's final status.
Regarding the INF (or chipset instalation utility as it's now called if I recall correctly) files, that's another Intel mistery. So many different versions and no one seems to know which is the latest or the right version for your mobo. I have also been around searching for the latest for 3 series (in my case) and this is different from the one on the CD as well as on their web page. Anyway, just decided to leave it as it is. The one issue have is that my SATA drives show up in IDE channels, not sure if this should be like that.
Regarding SMBus 2.0 driver, this what the description appears like in the System Devices in Device Manager after installing it "Intel (R) 82801 GB SMBus controller - 2930 (Intel (R) SMBus 2.0 driver). Reading the release notes I get even more confused, since the dates report back to January 9, 2007 and May 21, 2007. It states ICH9 support, ClearBus hang bug fix, WHQL certification, soft reset for ICH8 and ICH9. Go figure!!!
TCP/IP error? Could it be Vista connecting home, M$ is watching you!! Just kidding, not sure what could be, should check mine maybe.