Onboard Ethernet does not work on D945GCLF under 2.6.27-9-generic or 2.6.27-11-generic

[Neil Jeffery]

Motherboard = Intel Atom D945GCLF
On board Ethernet = 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)

Using kernel 2.6.27-7-generic the on board Ethernet works fine with no issues. Upgrading to either 2.6.27-9-generic or 2.6.27-11-generic causes eth0 not to be recognised at boot, leaving the machine with no network connection.

I had trouble getting the on board Ethernet to work with 2.6.27-7-generic initially, so I run a script which replaces the driver chosen by Ubuntu on boot. This is attached as "networkdriverswitch".

I have tried:

Removing the script from startup (In this case eth0 is recognised and the r8169 driver is loaded, this caused the interface to malfunction)
Recompiling the r8101.ko driver under 2.6.27-11-generic (eth0 is not recognised at all)

If there is any further information you require, please ask