Network Reliability Problems

[Randy Yates]

I just upgraded one of my home systems yesterday from FC4 to F8 x86_64 and
I am experiencing pretty much exactly the same problems described here

  http://lists.linuxcoding.com/rhl/2007q4/msg05976.html

1. Can anyone confirm whether or not the "noapic" option in grub.conf is a
good workaround? 

2. What are the consequences of disabling the "apic"?

3. Any other comments on this issue? 

More Information: The system has a built-in ethernet interface which had
been working fine for years under FC4. However, I did recently install a
Netgear WG311 PCI card into the system, but from all looks it seems as
if F8 ignored it - I only saw one network interface (besides LO) in any
of the installation screens and in any of the network utilities such
as ipconfig. 

I have not done anything (such as installing and configuring
NDISWRAPPER) to enable the operation of this Netgear card. However,
could it have something to do with this problem?

Also, while I'm here, can someone confirm or correct that the proper
approach to enabling the Netgear card is by installing and configuring
NDISWRAPPER? This was the entire reason I upgraded to F8 - I needed to
get the Netgear card working and the latest version of NDISWRAPPER
wouldn't compile on the old kernel in FC4.

Any help would be appreciated.
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "She's sweet on Wagner-I think she'd die for Beethoven.
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  She love the way Puccini lays down a tune, and
%%% 919-577-9882                %  Verdi's always creepin' from her room." 
%%%% <yates at ieee.org>           % "Rockaria", *A New World Record*, ELO   
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