UNO board I2C pullups? Can be enabled/disabled?

I would check that the pull ups are actually enabled as that could cause those sorts of problems as well.
I would use a large capacitor across the supply at the module end. Start with 47uF and work up to 1000uF.
The other thing that could cause this is the I2C clock geeing too fast but I don't see how that can be the case.
Can you examin the waveforms on a scope?