Re: [E1000-devel] Support for Intel Ethernet Connection I219-V

[Alexey M. <ale...@gm...>]

I have exchanged my laptop for a new one.  The online store accepted to exchange it because besides Ethernet under Linux, i also had problems with keyboard backlight under Windows.

The new one has no problems with keyboard backlight, but the issue with Ethernet is the same: under Linux i get "The NVM Checksum Is Not Valid."

Previously, ASUS customer support responded to me that they have not tools for fixing the NVM.

Now it looks like the NVM might not be exactly "corrupted," since i have the same issue after exchange.

Could this me a sign of incompatibility of e1000e with Intel Ethernet Connection I219-V?

Could you, please, give me some details about this checksum verification?  Is the expected value of the checksum the same for all Ethernet controllers, or does the driver know about expected checksums for all supported models?  Or is the checksum expected value stored in the NVM?

- Alexey.

On 20 Jul 2016, at 21:21, Rustad, Mark D <mar...@in...> wrote:

> Alexey Muranov <ale...@gm...> wrote:
> 
>> I wrote to Asus (my laptop maker), and they responded that they can only help with setting up the original hardware and software, and they cannot help if i have installed Linux, because the laptop was sold with Windows.  I wrote to them again explaining that it looks like there is a hardware problem.  I am waiting for an answer, but taking into account that Ethernet works under Windows 7, i imagine they can keep refusing to take care of my problem.
> 
> Possibly, unless you can get the issue escalated to a higher level of support somehow. It is not a surprise that the "front line" can only deal with Windows.
> 
> If they can provide a tool to modify the MAC address in the NVM, you may be able to use such a tool to correct the checksum by setting a different MAC address, and then setting the original MAC address back. That would only work if the tool they provide properly calculates the checksum, but there is at least a possibility that it would.
> 
>> Could you recommend me by any chance some tests to run under Windows and some Intel Ethernet Connection documentation to demonstrate to Asus that i have a hardware problem?
> 
> You probably won't find anything wrong in that way. The Windows driver doesn't check the checksum, so if it works properly under Windows, it is very likely that the only thing wrong is the checksum itself. I doubt very much that there is a true hardware problem - just an incorrect checksum.
> 
> Correcting the NVM checksum is the best solution, but modifying your system's NVM is something best done by your vendor or by tools and directions provided by your vendor. The potential for bricking the laptop is the reason to be very careful with NVM issues.
> 
> If you are able and willing, something that can be tried is to modify the driver to not error out on a bad checksum. If that works, it would tend to confirm that the only problem is the checksum itself. There are all kinds of issues with doing that so I am not strongly advocating doing that but only offering it as something to try if you understand what you are getting into when modifying drivers.
> 
> --
> Mark Rustad, Networking Division, Intel Corporation