Hmmm... Silly question / thought. The empeg only supports 10Mbps. I wonder if your card / connection is negotiating at the wrong speed or duplex. Can you reconnect the direct crossover cable, force the network interface to 10Mbps half duplex and see if that helps?

Note: I see a lot of this where I work because the section of the building where my cube is was wired with cheap CAT3. It may autonegotiate at 100Mbps, but it is half duplex, noisy, cannot support it and everyone gets dropped unless they force 10...