I wondered if its misconfigured in the firmware somehow as I can't find any documentation for the peg1 regarding how to disable/enable onboard ports and devices. I had a look at the .properties in /pci/ethernet at the firmware prompt but don't really know what to look for. It knew it was there and had a memory address of fe001100 allocated, showed the revision(0x51)/device/vendor bus id's and that it was using a VT8233.

I've ordered a RTL8139c nic as its in the supported list and just have to be patient now for the post person to bring it. It seems like the least painful route.