weird problem connecting to wired ethernet

[labelskate]

I am on ubuntu 8.10 on a c2d 3.0ghz box with 4 gigs of ram. when I first boot up my computer into ubuntu it searches for my wired ethernet connection but can not ever find it. I restart my computer and once it turns back on it instantly finds it. What can I do to fix this? I try to manually connect to it once it says no internet connection but it is unsuccessful until I reboot it.

thanks