Re: [E1000-devel] intel 82546eb gigabit dual-port (copper) troubles: no two simultaneous gigabit links possible?

[Stefaan <ste...@gm...>]

2009/4/27 Brandeburg, Jesse <jes...@in...>:
> What you're describing is usually due to a power supply/overcurrent issue.
> When both gigabit ports come up the NIC is pulling quite a bit more
> current.  I've seen the behavior you describe with other adapters, where
> the 3.3 or 5 volt supply lines droop too far, and causes the adapter to
> reset and/or disappear.

Nice suggestion, thanks.  But I contacted a friend about this problem,
and by sheer coincidence, he had another Intel PRO/1000 MT Dual Port
Server adaptor lying is his closet.  I tried it out in the same
system, and it works perfectly.  So it does really seem that MY cards
are having problems that this card does not seem to have.

So I went on to comparing both cards.  The only difference seems that
my cards are 82546EB, while his is 82546GB (as seen in lspci).
Indeed: the chip on his card reads: FW82546GB, Intel(C)'03, 0637,
FP23651.1, Taiwan
However, the chip on my card reads: FW82546GB, Intel(C)'03, 0636,
FP23601.1, Taiwan
I had expected it to read "EB", conforming to the different read-out by lspci.

Bottom line:
1) is it still reasonable to say my computer (power source or
motherboard) is at fault when two so closely related cards behave so
differently?
2) what can i still pursue to get them working?
3) are the cards I bought lying to me?

Many thanks, I appreciate your feedback,
Stefaan

ps: I have not just tried one power source with my own card, I tried
it in three very different systems: one completely new full-tower
core2, one old 1U rack-server pentium 3, and one small commodity PC