Kinda upset at the lack of response to GBe issues

[MarkHaysHarris777]

 However, I certainly won't be recommending this fix to anyone as it is a waste of a perfectly good GbE capable cable. If adding 'ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full' to/etc/rc.local is all that is needed, I would consider that as the best compromise until (if) a solution is found. However, it is interesting as a data collection point, as it did force the auto-negotiation to not consider GbE, and then allowed things to work.

Yes, and no.  I agree that I disabled a perfectly good Cat6 cable (new, at that!)    I purchased an entire bag (10) new very expensive Cat6 eth cables just for testing... and I tried each and every one of them just to make sure that this was not some kind of cabling issue (its not!). So, yes I modified one of those cables, but I did not waste it (all 10/100 connections never use the pairs I pulled from the cable); in other words, this cable will work perfectly in any 10/100 network.  And modifying the cable is easy, and fast. And then, the cable just works... no futzing around with the ethtool; nor automating a script. 

So, yes, I will be recommending this work-around to folks, but, I will not be calling it a fix!  It is not a fix, it is a work-around only .