[H-GEN] Problems with Realtek 8169 network adapter

[Gary Curtis]

I'm having some grief with the integrated network adapter
in my new motherboard.  Abit AB9 Quad-GT.

lspci says it's a "Realtek ... Unknown device 8167".
dmesg says it's part of the "Realtek TRL 8169/8110 family".

My problem is problem is NOT making the card work, my
problem is that many times it is not visible at all. I've worked
out that the problem is warmbooting. On a complete cold
start the card comes up every time. On a warmstart the card
never shows.  Why?

FWIW, I have downloaded, compiled and installed the
latest driver (r10001.05) from Realtek and when it's up
this works fine.

Has anyone had any similar experiences?

...and, most importantly, can this be fixed without changing
the mobo?  Short term [forever], I'm going to buy a cheap
8139 based PCI card to ease the pain. :-(

Thanks,

Gaz
--