Cobalt Raq2 Network Issues

[James <cypher@woh.rr.com>]

Ladies and Gents,

  I am attempting to install Debian on a Cobalt Raq2.  I am booting the 
system from another Debian machine using dhcp and the nfsroot package 
from here - 
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/installer-mipsel/current/images/cobalt/nfsroot.tar.gz.
When running the installer the system continually looses network 
connectivity.  After continually bringing the network interface (eth0) 
up and down to get all the needed packages, I finally got the system 
installed.
  Once I got the system booted on Debian-stable, running "Linux 
2.4.27-r5k-cobalt", the network continually drops out. There is no 
information logged to /var/log/messages, /var/log/kern.log or dmesg.
  Searching online I found a few references to others having similar 
problems but found no real solutions to the problem.  Has anyone else 
had this problem? Or found a solution for it?

Thanks,
  James