[ILUG] Missing network

[Kathryn Cassidy (User Account)]

Hello all,

I've a problem with a machine which seems to fail to
connect to the network properly about 4 out of 5 times
that it's turned on.

There's no errors on bootup; the network card is being
detected, the correct module loaded and all the network
daemons are loading corectly, but once I log in (as any
user) I find I can't ping any other machines on the
lan.  Pinging localhost works fine.

I've tried restarting the network daemon to no avail,
and the only thing that seems to fix it is restarting
the machine (repeatedly) until it decides to work.  I
know the network card is good as it dual boots windows
which has no problems (apart from the obvious).

Anyone have any idea what might be going on or what
files I should be scritinising for clues?  I've looked
through everything in /var/log and I'm none the wiser
for it.

Kathryn.