Peer 2 Peer Problem

I have 2 windows 98 machines that I've set up in a P2P network. This
is the situation:

1. Both machines have the same HW in them, a video card in the AGP
slot, and a sound card and network card in the two ISA slots.

2. I'm using the TCP/IP protocol, and set IP address manually.

3. File and print sharing enabled on both machines.

4. No driver problems on either network card (or anything else)

5. Tried using coax cable as well as RJ-45 crossover, same result
either way

The end result varies slightly. Sometimes, one machine will see both
itself and the other, or it wont see the other machine in Network
Neighbourhood at all. The other machine never sees anything in Network
Neighbourhood. They both ping each other no problem, and I can see the
files on either machine by typing their IP Address into the other
machines explorer windows, I.E. "\\125.0.0.1\c"

Of course, being able to share files and ping would be OK for most of
the time, but this is a college assignment and I need to solve this
problem, any help would be appreciated.