MS Windows/Linux Dual Boot and NIC Problems!
 

I ran into this problem once and today I was reminded when I was reading about this problems with Audio card (I dont think this includes any Audio devices) But I know if you are dual booting between Window$ OS and Linux that there may be problems with your Network Interface Card (NIC)!
Because Windows has an option that can put your NIC into Power Save mode.

some times if you reboot and the NIC stays in that mode and when you reboot in a new OS the NIC will not work.
This is not very common but can happen.
So while in windows go to your NIC's properties and uncheck that little box where it says:

Interesting, thanks for posting.

I once used the same "effect" to get a device working. I had a tape drive that I absolutely could not get working with the "ftape" library in Linux. Eventually I figured out that the only way to get its DMA / IRQ / Memory range settings (which seemed to change from boot to boot) was to first start XP, use its native Windows programs / driver to get its settings, then warm boot into Linux and use those settings in ftape...

So this kind of hardware behaviour / features (i. e. preserving power modes or DMA / IRQ / Memory ranges) across boots can have a good side too.