AOpen Mini PC ethernet issue on Ubuntu ?

[Dave Fregon]

I have an AOpen Mini PC as shown here :

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8464432110.html

Not the newer one that is listed on the AOpen site ..

.. I have Ubuntu Feisty installed, but continually have the ethernet
connection going up and down as shown in syslog :

May  4 10:25:02 intranet kernel: [142821.950579] r8169: eth0: link down
May  4 10:25:04 intranet kernel: [142823.796417] r8169: eth0: link up
May  4 10:25:04 intranet kernel: [142823.959072] r8169: eth0: link down
May  4 10:25:06 intranet kernel: [142825.598302] r8169: eth0: link up
May  4 10:25:06 intranet kernel: [142826.292885] r8169: eth0: link down
May  4 10:25:08 intranet kernel: [142827.902897] r8169: eth0: link up
May  4 10:25:23 intranet kernel: [142843.284369] r8169: eth0: link down
May  4 10:25:25 intranet kernel: [142844.883822] r8169: eth0: link up
May  4 10:25:25 intranet kernel: [142845.046479] r8169: eth0: link down
May  4 10:25:27 intranet kernel: [142846.696142] r8169: eth0: link up

etc etc ...

lspci -v shows :

01:06.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169
Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
        Subsystem: AOPEN Inc. Unknown device 0589
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
        I/O ports at c000 [size=256]
        Memory at d0020000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 10000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

I have no idea why this is occuring, the machine used to run an old
version of 'SMEServer' and worked fine. Maybe something in the new
kernel and not an ubuntu specific issue?

What would be the best way to troubleshoot this issue? searching google
I have found a lot regarding this card in general :\ .. but impossible
to pin down something that recreates this issue ... let alone a fix.

cheers for any advice on where to head with this ..

Dave

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