Went ahead and turned off my ethernet adapter to try it under v10. ...same behavior, on the 4890, anyway. It was under Linux, using Wine, but still. I'm guessing it wasn't anything you did/wrote, Badspot, but probably an ATI (or, perhaps, R700, specifically) incompatibility with Torque.
Oh, well. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I guess I'll just have to restrain my usage of bricks...