My LinkSys 16port 10/100 autosensing switch also works flawlessly with my Mk2a for DHCP.

I reckon that it's got something to do with the switch autosensing the line speed taking longer than the empeg is willing to wait. In most other platforms the time between plumbing the interface and requesting an IP is probably longer.

I remember learning that lesson the hard way with Cisco switches... setting spanning-tree portfast was the only way my PCs would get DHCP.

With the Empeg booting so fast, I wouldn't be surprised to see that be a problem with non-Cisco switches.

Now that I think about it, I'm running TTSClock. That runs before the player boots so I've got several extra seconds of link before DHCP requests are sent... maybe that's why it always works for me.