[weblacky]

I decided to switch to using LOVE for the network install, and it turns out LOVE gives you much more info on what is being transferred. when the install is started, the indy asks for the file "sa" and it begins to transfer and completes the transfer. than it requests unix.IP22. which begins to transfer. But not long after it says "transfer completed prematurely". after that message. the screen on my indy changes to having the IRIX text in the bottom right corner and immediately kernel faults as usual. So it seems like something is causing the transfer of the miniroot to fail, and it tries to run but the data is incomplete

This MIGHT be network switch issue!  Can you try to make/or get an adapter on Amazon or manually crimp an ethernet cable to create a cross-over cable and directly link both the Indy and and your Windows machine directly. See if the TFTP transfer works then.  If need be, manually switch your PC to 10baseT...you may need to try half and instead of full duplex if you still have issues.

Sounds like a network flow control issue.

Just to elaborate more, a lot of recent consumer network switches actually have terrible 10baseT support. Even though they might say it in the front, some of them actually omitted as a way of telling you they don't support at all.  I physically seen two switches for home use where 10Mb ethernet didn't actually function correctly. I think this is what's happening with you.  You can try an older more basic 10/100 switch but it would probably be easier just to directly cable the two for the purpose of loading the OS.