Intel D945GTP PRO/1000 PM RIS Drivers

[BSRdr]

So I'm curious, would a board that won't properly RIS boot be considered defective enough for an exchange? You mentioned the timings being bad. Technically speaking the NIC works, just not for our purposes of performing a RIS install. Also, would the timings be configurable somehow? Back in the day when the 3Com 3C905 series was the gold standard, on some models you could program some of the options in the ROM to stick.

I don't need to have a reason to RMA an Intel product, they are very good about that with partners. However this issue seems to only effect RIS preloads; as such machines that fail the RIS load can still be imaged via PE for example.

The timing issue, if indeed that's what it is, is what I am trying to flesh out more before reporting it back to my intel tech sales rep inside. Failing that I can work with quadsupport to flesh it out further, but it takes time, and I am a bit short of that these days.

This isn't dramatically different then say BOXD845GVSRL which had a somewhat similar issue with RIS however in that case just under 5% of the last batch revision would refuse to get DHCP during RIS. Again an issue only during RIS preloads, no where else was it a factor. Very strange none the less....

That is a very good question on editing those timings, I will have to dig into the ROM options to see. However bottom line when identically configured hardware exists, they should behave identically... These do not, hence a design of manufacturing flaw exists in the 945G series.

Edited March 1, 2006 by BSRdr

[RogueSpear]

One of my suppliers accidentally sent me a batch of units with SiS mobos I decided to give one a shot in the event that it would be satisfactory, figuring it would save me the hassle of returning all of them. Well I couldn't get it to DHCP for RIS at all even though the motherboard box had a flashy thing on it that proclaimed "PXE 2.0 Compliant!" Now it makes me wonder if that was a similar issue. I'll never know since I sent them all back for Intel based systems.

I have to be honest, I never knew these things could be so tempermental.

[BSRdr]

One of my suppliers accidentally sent me a batch of units with SiS mobos I decided to give one a shot in the event that it would be satisfactory, figuring it would save me the hassle of returning all of them. Well I couldn't get it to DHCP for RIS at all even though the motherboard box had a flashy thing on it that proclaimed "PXE 2.0 Compliant!" Now it makes me wonder if that was a similar issue. I'll never know since I sent them all back for Intel based systems.

I have to be honest, I never knew these things could be so tempermental.

I didn't realize it either till I started bumping into it. As a very long time intel partner, I have to say the QA in the last year has gone downhill by 50%. I've actually had to resort to serious browbeating including conference calls with Tech Reps and even the heads of platforms to get them to release a TA on the SR1425 server platform as an example that they had held for months regarding the actual server not booting when a particular group of circumstances take place. They claimed sub 1%, honestly I say it was closer to 10%....

[Fencer128]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies. I'm still talking with our supplier - as they are now able to recreate our problem in their own test facility. I've so far tried 2 boards, both with negative results. I should say that this is not the same issue as mentioned above (I think - could you be more specific?)

I can PXE boot, but just when text-mode setup starts and you get the "Please Wait" - the "Can't find drivers for your NIC" follows shortly afterwards. I don't get to the part where partitioning occurs (yet )

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Andy

Edited March 1, 2006 by Fencer128

[BSRdr]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies. I'm still talking with our supplier - as they are now able to recreate our problem in their own test facility. I've so far tried 2 boards, both with negative results. I should say that this is not the same issue as mentioned above (I think - could you be more specific?)

I can PXE boot, but just when text-mode setup starts and you get the "Please Wait" - the "Can't find drivers for your NIC" follows shortly afterwards. I don't get to the part where partitioning occurs (yet )

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Andy

On a side note, got a sucessful RIS preload today on a D975XBX board that uses a Pro 1000 PL chipset. I've got to do some digging and come up with a Pro 1000M batch to check your issues more thoroughly.

Edited March 1, 2006 by BSRdr

[Fencer128]

Hi,

Well - it's now working. The vendor gave us a driver to try - it was the e1e5132.inf and e1e5132.sys from PROSet 10.1.

This worked. I suspected that the 10.2 drivers were at fault but until now have not been able to find an archived copy of PROSet 10.1 to try a downgrade.

One error I made that should be pointed out is that the onboard ethernet controller is in fact a 82753E and not, as I initially thought, a 82753V.

Anyhow - the message is clear, if you use the Intel D945GTP with onboard PRO/1000 PM NIC (82753E ethernet controller) then you must use the drivers from PROSet 10.1 to get it working in RIS with a 2k3 server (other servers untested). Hopefully this will be fixed when v10.3 is released.

Last point is that I *still* have an issue of sorts. The RIS build works fine for all machines except the D945GTP based ones. The D945FTP based PCs only build reliably from certain network points... other network points cause an error where just as text mode setup begins the grey bar and "Please Wait..." do not appear and setup hangs indefinately.

We don't know whether this is a network hardware preference, link negotiation, latency or some other issue. I'll let you know when I've got more answers. Once again, this only affects D945GTP based machines.

Phew!

Cheers,

Andy

Edited March 2, 2006 by Fencer128

[RogueSpear]

It almost sounds driver related as well. Except for the part where you say it works from some places and not others.

I've found that with RealTek NICs, you must use the Microsoft included drivers for older (3 yrs) models. Unfortunately, the HWIDs for the newest integrated NICs are not included in those and you must use the newest driver set. If I use the newest drivers with an old model, I get something very similar to what you described. It just hangs at the text mode portion where it says "Starting Windows XP" indefinately.

This is certainly the kind of thing I've grown to expect out of RealTek, but I'm pretty disappointed to read everything in this thread regarding Intel. First Intel starts to put Yukon Marvel NICs on some of their mobos and now even some of their own NICs don't work properly. Great. I guess there's no longer a sure bet in our world.

[Fencer128]

Hi,

I'm disappointed too - especially since this is their "Stable Platform" and they've had since Novermber to think about a new driver/firmware release.

I've found that with RealTek NICs, you must use the Microsoft included drivers for older (3 yrs) models. Unfortunately, the HWIDs for the newest integrated NICs are not included in those and you must use the newest driver set. If I use the newest drivers with an old model, I get something very similar to what you described. It just hangs at the text mode portion where it says "Starting Windows XP" indefinately.

I've seen such behaviour before, though the error I'm getting doesn't hang at the "Starting Windows" (which is most often the case). The last time I had similar problems was with Broadcom drivers about a year or so ago. Broadcom are fine now *touch wood*.

Cheers,

Andy

Edited March 2, 2006 by Fencer128

[Fencer128]

Hi,

Turns out that apart from the driver issues with the board, the board also had a hardware issue. The board has been replaced and now happily RIS builds.

However, above advice concerning drivers still applies.

NOTE: Intel have recently released their 10.3 PROSet drivers. They have not yet released the "full pack" that contains the specialised RIS INF files though. As soon as they do I'll test them and let you know whther the driver problems that plagued this board with the 10.2 driver version have been fixed.

Cheers,

Andy

Edited April 19, 2006 by Fencer128

[Fencer128]

Hi,

Out of impatience I've tried RIS with the PROSet 10.3 drivers - as is (i.e. I've not waited for any further release of a RIS specific version).

EDIT: RIS specific drivers have now been released. They have been tested and work fine.

The result is that on any 10/100 or gigabit system I've tried, inc. the D945GTP platform, everything has worked.

I can thoroughly reccommend an upgrade to 10.3 if you are experiencing any issues with Intel NICs and RIS.

Cheers,

Andy

ps - Only big chnage I noticed was to the file set for 10 Gigabit cards. They've changed some names and added another sys file. I don't have the hardware available to test this on at the moment, but if anyone knows anything about whether these latest drivers work with this hardware under RIS I'd be glad to know.

Edited April 19, 2006 by Fencer128

[RogueSpear]

Thanks for hammering this out Fencer. All good information to know. And glad to see everything's working again for you

[bluescreens]

Hi,

Out of impatience I've tried RIS with the PROSet 10.3 drivers - as is (i.e. I've not waited for any further relaease of a RIS specific version).

EDIT: RIS specific drivers have now been released. They have been tested and work fine.

The result is that on any 10/100 or gigabit system I've tried, inc. the D945GTP platform, everything has worked.

I can thoroughly reccommend an upgrade to 10.3 if you are experiencing any issues with Intel NICs and RIS.

Cheers,

Andy

ps - Only big chnage I noticed was to the file set for 10 Gigabit cards. They've changed some names and added another sys file. I don't have the hardware available to test this on at the moment, but if anyone knows anything about whether these latest drivers work with this hardware under RIS I'd be glad to know.

Are you guys applying 2003 hotfix KB823658 (or 2003 SP1)? That should allow just about anyone's INFs to work....and is vastly easier than waiting for RIS-specific INFs or <shudder> modifying them. Cost to get it is $0 - just call up MS and tell 'em you want it.

[RogueSpear]

I haven't tried that hotfix as it appears to not apply to Windows 2000 Server RIS servers. I have to say though, once you know what to do with the .inf file, it takes about 20 seconds to do it. And modifying the .inf file has no bearing on the PnP enumeration of the NIC during setup. The drivers for PnP are located elsewhere in the install source.

EDIT: Guess I didn't scroll down far enough. It does seem to apply to 2000 SP4.

Edited March 28, 2006 by RogueSpear

[Fencer128]

@bluescreens

Well spotted It appears to fix the parsing of the [Manufacturer] section of the INF files so that tweaking is no longer required.

However, I'm using SP1, and according to MS (I just rang them), as you suggest, the hotfix is rolled in. It's been a while since I tried non-modified INFs so I may try at some point to see if the issue is resolved.

Thanks again,

Andy

PS - The hotfix wouldn't have fixed the problem with the above network card and the Intel 10.2 drivers - I think it went deeper than the [Manufacturer] section as it was correctly formatted for RIS and we're using SP1.

Edited March 29, 2006 by Fencer128

[Anderz]

FYI: I had the same problem with an Intel PRO/1000 PL LAN Adapter (82573L). Installing the drivers from PROSet v10.3 solved all the issues.

Thanks for the info Fencer128!