r8169 PXE boot problems

[David A. Bandel]

Folks,

I have 18 PXE clients.  16 of them (with various ethernet cards) boot
from a central server just fine.  Two have the Realtek 8169 cards (not
my choice, built into the motherboard) that won't boot.  They start to
boot, then after the kernel takes over they go eth0 down and stop.

Google suggests I'm not the only one with this problem, but I didn't
find a clear solution.

I'm open to suggestions for how I might get past this snag.

TIA,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
 - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto