DHCP at power up doesn't request IP

Board: RocketBoards Cyclone V SoC Development Kit

Connections: USB to host computer from serial terminal (J7), Ethernet to switch (J3).

I have verified the connections above are correct and working. I can get the terminal running using Putty. Through this terminal, I observe the boot messages after a power up. I see these messages:

Sending discover...

Sending discover...

No lease, failing

On the LCD, I see the message "No IP obtained Hello Tim!" and I use the "ifconfig eth0" command to verify that the board did NOT get an IP. I also run Wireshark at the same time, and I never see any DHCP requests.

However, if I run the command "ifup eth0" after power up, the interface eth0 is brought up as expected and an IP address is obtained from the DHCP server. Also, I observe a good DHCP interchange in the Wireshark listing.

Also, after power and subsequent failure to get an IP, I can run the command "shutdown -r now" and the board successfully reboots (not power cycle) and successfully gets an IP from the DHCP server. So, I see that the Linux initialization works, but not after a power cycle.

Is the DHCP client (udhcpc) is not waiting long enough? How do I configure the client anyway? Why doesn't the client send out a DHCP request, or "Discover", after a power up? It does it properly after reboot, but not power cycle. Clear?