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Problem with Intel PRO/1000PM integrated NIC

idata
Employee
2,630 Views

Hello, everyone.

I am having a very strange problem with an Intel PRO/1000 PM integrated NIC in a Supermicro X7SBE motherboard. The NIC does not report its MAC address to Windows, leaving it to full zeros (00-00-00-00-00) and keeping the operating system without even DHCP or basic networking.

If I boot the server with a Linux CentOS or other LiveCD, the NICs work fine and that OS can read the NICs MAC address as usual, so this must be a software incompatibility issue.

How can I solve this? I read the MAC address and used the "Locally Administred Address" option to sucessfully set it and get networking back up, but this is of course not a valid option for someone with several of these servers..

I have also posted this question with Supermicro support, still no answer... The version of the OS is "Windows 2003 Standard Edition SP2 R2 OEM", no updates or patches installed.

Thanks in advance,

Ivo Pereira

IT Consultant

Portugal

MCSE / CCNA

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4 Replies
Daniel_O_Intel
Employee
984 Views

Your EEPROM is not corrupted, since it works fine in other OSes. It's probably some IPMI or other management tool built in to R2, that's interfering. Can you try a plain version of Windows 2003?

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idata
Employee
984 Views

Hello.

The Windows Server 2003 version I used for testing doesn´t have any IPMI component or driver that I am aware of, especially since the Supermicro motherboard I am using only supports IPMI 2.0 over SOL without the KVM part.

I will check to see if some IPMI driver is loaded, anyway.

Thanks again,

Ivo Pereira

IT Consultant

Portugal

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Daniel_O_Intel
Employee
984 Views

Check under Control Panel | Add Remove Programs | Add/Remove Windows Components | Management and Monitoring Tools | Hardware Management - make sure that's unchecked.

Found from http://www.google.com/search?q=2003+r2+ipmi

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idata
Employee
984 Views

Hello again, Dan.

I have checked my Windows server and no, the IPMI "Hardware Management" component is really not checked. I usually install all my servers with custom WINNT.SIF files so that only the components I need get installed, but I checked it anyway given that Windows could install it for me without my knowledge..

I have received a reply from Supermicro support, they are saying that the NIC´s EEPROM must be flashed (updated with the same code.. or new one) to solve the issue. This is a real pain since the server is 60 kms away from my work and I have to reboot it in DOS to flash...

Let´s see if this is the actual cause of the problem. This is a first for me, problems with Supermicro hardware... I will keep posting feedback until this is solved.

Thanks again,

Ivo Pereira

IT Consultant

Portugal

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