[E1000-devel] e1000e not working on Dell Latitude E6400

[Svein S. <sv...@se...>]

Hi

I'm new to this list, so please bear with me.

I have a Dell Latitude E6400 running Ubuntu Natty amd64 (kernel 
2.6.38-12-generic) which I have problems with my e1000e nic. Very often 
my nic does not work. I.e. ifconfig lists eth0, but ethtool is not able 
to access the device (see below). If I do an ifup, the operation simply 
hangs.

It seems like, even though unproved, that to get my nic working, I need 
to boot Win7 and use the wired network. If Win7 is used with the cable 
inserted, it seems Linux is able to use the nic afterwards. If Win7 is 
used without wired ethernet, the e1000e driver misbehaves in Linux. To 
me this suggests that its some Dell specific setting which Linux does 
not know of. I've checked the BIOS settings, but nothing there which 
suggests such a setting.

Is this at all familiar to anyone?

PS! My Dell's motherboard is brand new. I had a thermal meltdown, so 
Dell has recently replaced the entire board.


Best regards,
Svein Seldal




# ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:24:e8:9e:5d:3d
           inet6 addr: fe80::224:e8ff:fe9e:5d3d/64 Scope:Link
           UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
           RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:19 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
           RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:4666 (4.6 KB)
           Interrupt:22 Memory:f6fe0000-f7000000

# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Cannot get device settings: No such device
Cannot get wake-on-lan settings: No such device
Cannot get message level: No such device
Cannot get link status: No such device
No data available

# mii-tool eth0
SIOCGMIIPHY on 'eth0' failed: No such device

# dmesg |grep e1000e
e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 1.2.20-k2
e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2011 Intel Corporation.
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: setting latency timer to 64
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: (PCI Express:2.5GB/s:Width x1) 00:24:e8:9e:5d:3d
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: MAC: 7, PHY: 8, PBA No: 1004FF-0FF
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 45 for MSI/MSI-X
e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: Rx/Tx
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: 10/100 speed: disabling TSO
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: PCI INT A disabled
e1000e 0000:00:19.0: PME# enabled