ethernet network does not start at boot, assume driver r8169 problem

I just did an upgrade to Gutsy and was hit with this bug. I never had this problem with Feisty.
This appears similar to bug #86798 (r8169 driver does not detect link)

Start computer (in this case a desktop) with cable connected (as usual). At boot the ethernet card light goes off (it was on before booting). I then have no network access. I then can resolve with:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking stop
sudo modprobe -r r8169
sudo modprobe r8169

However, this is not a good solution if my wife or others reboot the computer as they would need the root password to run these commands.

More Info:
[ 27.644702] eth0: RTL8169sc/8110sc at 0xf8854000, 00:16:e6:9e:4d:98, IRQ 20
[ 52.079349] r8169: eth0: link down
[ 54.710689] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready

 lshw -C network
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 5
       bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 10
       serial: 00:16:e6:9e:4d:98
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 66MHz
       capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.2LK ip=192.168.1.101 latency=96 maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 module=r8169 multicast=yes

The motherboard is a Gigabyte S-Series 945GZM-S2