EtherPro 100: e100 says EEPROM corrupted

From: Steve Kirkendall (skirkendall_at_dsl-only.net)
Date: 06/29/05 

Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:46:47 -0700

I'm trying to install SuSE 9.2 on an ASUS P4P800-VM-UAYZ motherboard.
This mostly went well, except that the onboard ethernet port isn't
working.

YaST identifies it as an "Intel 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) integrated
LAN Controller" which sounds right. I can go through all the usual
setup steps without any hint of trouble.

But when the "e100" module is loaded, I get the following messages in
/var/log/messages (or /var/log/boot.msg if I reboot with the ethernet
port configured):

  e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.3.6-k2-NAPI
  e100: Copyright (c) 1999-2004 Intel Corporation
  ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:08.0[A] -> GSI 20 (level, low) -> IRQ 185
  e100: 0000:01:08.0: e199_eeprom_load: EEPROM corrupted
  e100: probe of 0000:01:08.0 failed with error -11

I've searched the web, and it seems that this is a fairly common
problem. Many people have reported getting an "EEPROM corrupted"
error for perfectly good hardware. As far as I can tell, nobody
has ever posted a followup message saying "Yes, that fixed it,
thanks!" which is kind of discouraging.

I tried a new version of the e100 driver from Intel, but that didn't
solve anything. Then I downloaded an entire new kernel from kernel.org
and that didn't fix it either. (The above /var/log/messages extract
is with the 2.6.11.12 kernel; the driver version number in the stock
SuSE 9.2 kernel is probably different, but the "EEPROM corrupted"
message is the same for every combination of drivers and kernels that
I've tried.)

I even tried editing the e100 source code to disable the "EEPROM
corrupted" check, but then it failed saying the MAC address was
invalid -- which is no surprise the the EEPROM exists mostly for
the purpose of storing the MAC address.

I've heard of a different driver, not from Intel, called "etherpro"
or something like that, but I haven't been able to find it. I get
the impression that it was abandoned when Intel provided the "e100"
driver.

I would be tempted to just toss a cheap ethernet card in there, but
this system is supposed to be a "golden" system from which many copies
will be made so I'd prefer to avoid any hardware kludges like that.

So... Does anybody have any ideas?

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