Updating i210 firmware with EEUPDATE has intermittent bad results

CHarr · ‎01-28-2018

Our proprietary motherboards have two i210-AT NIC's. Our vendor currently supplies the boards with both NIC NVRAM's loaded with firmware version 3.16.

We are trying to update the NIC's to firmware version 3.25 in our production process using Windows PE, but have encountered a strange intermittent problem.

The EEUPDATE command ("EEUPDATEW64e.exe /All /D I210_Ver.3.25_20171012.bin") appears to be successful, per this output:

EEUPDATE v5.30.22.00

Intel (R) Confidential and not for general distribution.

NIC Bus Dev Fun Vendor-Device Branding string

=== === === === ============= =================================================

1 1 00 00 8086-1533 Intel(R) I210 Gigabit Network Connection

2 2 00 00 8086-1533 Intel(R) I210 Gigabit Network Connection

1: EEPROM Image Version: 3.25

2: EEPROM Image Version: 3.25

After cycling power to the board, we can confirm the NIC firmware version displayed in our BIOS settings. Usually, we will see 3.25 for both NIC's, as expected.

However on some units, the 2nd NIC will still report version 3.16 in the BIOS settings. (As I understand, the BIOS code is reading the firmware version via an offset to PCI BAR1 address.) In this case, the EEUPDATE tool does report firmware version 3.25 is installed. It is not clear which is correct, EEUPDATE or the BIOS.

We can usually repair this problem when it happens by simply rerunning the same EEUPDATE command as above. But this should not be necessary.

Any idea how we are getting this contradictory result, and what to do about it?

idata · ‎01-28-2018

Hi H241x,

Thank you for posting in Wired Communities. What is the exact brand and model of your motherboard?

As mentioned the NIC was loaded with firmware version 3.16 from the board vendor, have you contacted the board vendor? For onboard NIC, it recommended to contact the board vendor for the support.

You can also post your inquiry at embedded support communities https://embedded.communities.intel.com/community/en

Regards,

Sharon T

idata · ‎02-05-2018

Hi H241x,

What is the brand and model of your motherboard? Have you contacted them for further support?

Thanks,

Sharon T

idata · ‎02-13-2018

Hi H241x,

Please feel free to update me. Thank you.

Regards,

Sharon T

CHarr · ‎05-17-2018

Hi Sharon,

First of all, regarding your questions above:

"What is the exact brand and model of your motherboard?"

Reply: As I said, it is proprietary. It is not made by any of the major PC or motherboard manufacturers.

"As mentioned the NIC was loaded with firmware version 3.16 from the board vendor, have you contacted the board vendor? For onboard NIC, it recommended to contact the board vendor for the support."

Reply: The specific scenario involves systems that were already manufactured with firmware version 3.16 and delivered to our production centers. It would be cost-prohibitive to ship them all back to our board vendor for update. Regarding contacting them for support: we did so, and they confirmed that we are correctly using the Intel EEUPDATE tool, but they have not been able to reproduce the reported issue, apparently due to the intermittent nature of the problem.

We have been using EEUPDATE in Windows PE in our manufacturing process for several years. This is the first time we have encountered intermittent results with EEUPDATE.

And an update:

I recently realized we are not using the latest version of EEUPDATEW32.exe so I downloaded the latest Quartzville tools (348742-348742-quartzville-tools-488559.zip - "Intel Network Connections Tools 23.0 PV LAN Software Tools, 02-Feb-2018), and encountered a surprising new problem:

The new Windows 32-bit version (EEUPDATEW32.exe - version 5.30.25.6) does not work at all in any version of 32-bit Windows, including:

Windows PE 10 x86
Windows 7 SP1 x86
Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB x86

For example, in Windows 10, after running the provided "install.bat", the command: EEUPDATEW32 /mac_dump_all

results in an application error in the Windows Event Log:

Faulting application name: EEUPDATEW32.exe, version: 5.30.25.6, time stamp: 0x5a3a85d3

Faulting module name: EEUPDATEW32.exe, version: 5.30.25.6, time stamp: 0x5a3a85d3

Exception code: 0xc0000409

Fault offset: 0x00237963

Faulting process id: 0x1640

Faulting application start time: 0x01d3edeb39002b35

Faulting application path: C:\temp\EEUPDATEW32.exe

Faulting module path: C:\temp\EEUPDATEW32.exe

Report Id: 493385e5-da86-4209-9bf3-77a3f74d4e2e

Faulting package full name:

Faulting package-relative application ID:

Is this a known problem?

idata · ‎05-17-2018

Hi H241x,

Thank you for replying back and provided additional information. As this is relevant to onboard NIC (chipset that embedded on proprietary system) and using the Quartzville tools, please post your inquiry at our embedded support at https://embedded.communities.intel.com/community/en, they can further assist you from there. Thank you.

Regards,

Sharon T