Re: [E1000-devel] how to repair correupted EEPROM/NVM?

[Brandeburg, J. <jes...@in...>]

Pierre Ossman wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:05:15 -0700
> Jesse Brandeburg <jes...@in...> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I'm concerned that you're actually having some other driver problem
>> that isn't getting reported, like a wierd semaphore issue or
>> something. can you build the e1000e-0.4.1.7.tar.gz driver from
>> sourceforge and try it? While you're doing that, please build (and
>> install if you so choose) with this 
>> 
> 
> Debug output attached.

Thanks! it appears to read the eeprom without error, but could you add a
printk to the read_flash_word routine so that it prints the %04X value
that is read?

Let me know if you're not comfortable with that level of coding, but it
seems like you would be since you figured out how to turn on dmesg
timestamps in your kernel. :-)
 
>> 
>> The thing that most disturbed me is that you said your BIOS could
>> still read the MAC address (if it wasn't pulling it from somewhere
>> else). This indicates that it is likely your eeprom is still there
>> and intact. 
>> 
> 
> Actually, it seems that wasn't entirely true. The MAC address it
> displays get changed every time I reboot, so it seems like it is just
> junk.

hm, yeah, that should definitely be the same all the time.
 
> A bit odd that the driver reads it as FF:s though and BIOS gets
> random data. Could just be some bug in the BIOS when it encounters a
> bad EEPROM I guess...

yes that is rather strange.  We had an issue before where we had to
force the driver to read the eeprom twice to get it to work due to a
power save mode (ASPM) staying on in the hardware too long.  You might
be able to try that.

wow, google yielded some information I didn't know about.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_e1000:_EEPROM_Checksum_Is_Not
_Valid

hm, this article points to the ibautil program which can restore your
eeprom, I didn't know we had this available (and I'm not sure if it will
work on your hardware)  This tool is from my group, as is the eeupdate
program, but I'm not sure you should trust the ftp.extensa.ru site.  If
you download that eeupdate tool be sure to check it for viruses/malware.

Let me know if any of that helps.