sleepy fxp0

[Gerard Samuel]

Im currently using FreeBSD 5.3, using the fxp driver for
my network card.
$ dmesg | grep fxp0
fxp0: <Intel 82557 Pro/100 Ethernet> port 0xec00-0xec1f mem 
0xdff00000-0xdfffffff,0xdd9ff000-0xdd9fffff irq 10 at device 8.0 on pci0

This box currently uses DHCP to get its IP address.
When it boots up, and I log in, and immediately try to
initiate any network activity from this box, it takes about
2-3 seconds for said network activity to start.
For example, if I were to ping, or startx, it takes
about 2-3 seconds for either ping or startx to actually start.

During the boot sequence I notice this ->
fxp0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=8<VLAN_MTU>
        inet 192.168.0.16 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
        ether 00:80:29:65:e2:96
        media: Ethernet autoselect (none)
        status: no carrier

After the 2-3 seconds after the OS has booted up, it changes to ->
fxp0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=8<VLAN_MTU>
        inet 192.168.0.16 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
        ether 00:80:29:65:e2:96
        media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
        status: active

Is this normal?
If you need any other information, please, feel free to ask.
Thanks for any information that you can provide...