What about modprobe -r the module, and then reloading it? Does that help at all? Unfortunately this might just be bad hardware, or a bad driver. r8139 is a rather old driver, so it's more likely that your hardware just sporadically fails.
Cheers, Kyle ** Changed in: linux-source-2.6.20 (Ubuntu) Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info -- Strange network behavior https://launchpad.net/bugs/85520 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs