I\'ve recently wiped and reinstalled/configured all the components of my web and DB servers. I\'m running IIS 6, .NET 3.5, SQL Server 2005. The two servers are separate VM\'
Well I would start by ensuring I'm running the latest version of my virtual machine's network drivers.
Sounds like comms is failing between your 2 VMS. Try opening a TCP socket between the two machines and see if it dies after a certain amount of time.