When emplode is loaded, it tries to find the empeg-car in the locations that you've checked in the Options dialog.
This is done in the foreground, and it's given about 5 seconds to each discovery method (serial, USB, ethernet) to find empegs. This is why turning off the ethernet seems to make it faster -- it does make it faster.
However, sometimes the USB discovery doesn't work first time, so you occasionally have to hit the Refresh button (or take a round-trip through the options dialog). This usually fixes it.
As for the ethernet problems, is it finding the unit in the discovery dialog? If it is, then it's something else, and we'll need to look deeper.
Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg
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roger