I reckon that it's got something to do with the switch autosensing the line speed taking longer

I agree that there must be a defect in the autosense mechanism -- but how do I trigger autosense? Well, it happens when the Empeg is connected to the hub, right? Cuz that's when the hub lights up and says "10mb/sec" instead of 100 on the front panel LEDs.

So.. I just assigned static IP, rebooted the player, waited 10 minutes, and then pinged it. It always misses (doesn't see) the first ping.

???