OK, linux gurus. What's wrong with my wired network in ubuntu 11.04?

[struggle4progress]

I can auto-connect with a usb wireless dongle

But no matter what I do, I can't auto-connect to a wired network

ifconfig suggests I've got an active eth0 connection but my browser then still reports I'm not connected

Now, I can actually connect to a wired network by sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart, though I get a "deprecated" warning. And if I connect this way, the menubar network indicator applet doesn't think I'm connected to a network

[ChromeFoundry]

1. Probably already tried this.. but...

are you running the latest Network Manager?

Network Manager ==> Edit Connections ==> eth0 ==> Edit ==> Connect Automatically
It should show eth0 as "Auto".

What does "sudo ethtool eth0" show?

If that all looks good, does "sudo ifconfig eth0 down", "sudo ifconfig eth0 up" establish a connection?

[struggle4progress]

2. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into this and check back later