I have this motherboard and am using the built in NIC for the network. However, it has an odd problem where sometime you boot up and there is no network connection. Neither XP or Ubuntu on the machine can get an IP address from the router. The fact neither OS can, suggests to me this is a hardware issue rather than drivers.

The problem seems to be able to be fixed by doing the following:

1. Shutdown XP (or Ubuntu)
2. Once shutdown the orange link light on the NIC stays on. Switch the PSU off until the link light goes off.
3. Once the orange link light goes off, switch the PSU back on.
4. Boot OS.

However, it is really annoying to have to do this every time and I wondered if anyone had a more permament solution?