networking - Ethernet interface gets disabled when GPU is removed

I'd like to first say I am a completely new to Ubuntu, I quite literally started using it last week so I am not too familiar with how everything functions.

With that said, I am experiencing an issue where my Ethernet interface gets disabled when I remove my GPU and I have to manually enable it when powering on the PC. I had installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with the GPU installed initially and then realized I had no need for the GPU for my use case and decided to remove it. After removing it the interface keeps getting disabled between power cycles.

Here's the output for

lshw -c network

for both scenarios, first with the GPU inside.

sudo lshw -c network
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: enp2s0
       version: 06
       serial: 74:d4:35:92:7e:50
       size: 1Gbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=192.168.2.238 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
       resources: irq:16 ioport:d000(size=256) memory:fe900000-fe900fff memory:d0000000-d0003fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: docker0
       serial: 02:42:dc:90:c3:39
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A ip=172.17.0.1 link=no multicast=yes

Without GPU

sudo lshw -c network
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       logical name: enp1s0
       version: 06
       serial: 74:d4:35:92:7e:50
       size: 10Mbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
       resources: irq:16 ioport:d000(size=256) memory:fea00000-fea00fff memory:d0000000-d0003fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: docker0
       serial: 02:42:dc:90:c3:39
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A ip=172.17.0.1 link=no multicast=yes

Bus info and logical name is a clear indicator that something is happening when I remove the GPU but doesn't explain why it is automatically disabled after each power cycle.