[eepro100] eepro100 and Intel STL2

[wfrancis@incyte.com]

Hello listers

I have a large batch of new Intel STL2 motherboards which
come with an integrated eepro100 adapter using the
82559 chipset. I'm having a problem using kickstart with
both Red Hat versions 6.2 and 7.1. Under 6.2, the install
will not get off the ground at all and will simply not
receive any packets (ie during the reverse DNS
lookup, and then times out completely on the attempt to
mount via NFS the install server). During this time,
on one of the debugging pages I see "neighbor table
overflow" errors and a variety of other error looking
codes that don't mean anything to me.

Under 7.1, things are slightly more promising. I can
(sometimes) get through the entire install, but then
on the postinstall portion, my script copies the entire
Red Hat install directory (as this machine then becomes
an install server for a subnet), and it'll time out onn
that. Again I get the "neighbor table overflow" errors,
but I also get wait_for_cmd_done or some such similar
errors as well. Eventually, it starts to timeout though
and things the NFS server is overloaded when it is 
anything but and eventually the transfer will then
hang (not the whole machine though).

So, I edited my kickstart file to include a line like

device eth e100

to have it attempt that driver, but (under 7.1 at least)
it still detects and loads the eepro100 driver regardless,
and then still does not work, even though it does load
the e100 driver.

We know for _certain_ it's not the network, as we've tried
4 different brands of switches (even a 5 port 10Mb hub)
and spent most of yesterday sniffing packets. If I throw
an older Lancewood system on this subnet, the install com
pletes without a hiccup.

At this point, I'm more concerned with 6.2, as 7.1 will
have to wait until I've thoroughly tested the XFS patches
from SGI.

At this point, I'm nearly out of ideas, and people _really_
want these 180 processors online...

Your thoughts greatly appreciated.

Will