Comment 8 for bug 672387

Yes I can confirm this.
There are also other Realtek ethernet cards suffering this very problem.
And it has been around at least from Jauntys 2.6.28 kernel.

This softreset failure occurs every now and then, at irregular intervals.
Also, a kernel update/upgrade may trigger this.
After the failure, the ethernet card is somehow locked.
The only cure is the hard reset, complete power off.
I use the power switch of my power supply to do this.