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TheShich · (This post was last modified: 2018-04-14 18:34 by TheShich.)

Hello
I've got a DEC DECchip 21142/43 (rev30) 1011:0019 NIC and failed get it working with iPXE. It should be working according to hardware compatibility list.
First iPXE prints something about legacy mode then tries to do dhcp and fails.
dhcp command from command line fails too.
[Image: looks_like.png]

PC and network are 100% working (link is up). I've tried another NIC on same PC and it boots perfectly. I've tried premade images and tried to build them by myself - no luck with DEC NIC.
I know the NIC is very old, but it is still working in Windows without problems.
It seems like NIC can't receive any data. After failed dhcp command ifstat shows RX=0 and RXE =0.
I can't ping NIC after configuring static IP address too.
I have to get it working with iPXE. Please, give me ideas how to investigate this issue further and fix it.

Gelip · 2018-04-26, 19:15

Try the older version iPXE e.g. this:
https://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git/snapshot/c...bf4fb1.zip
I am using this version iPXE in MS VPC 2007.

***NiKiZe*** · 2018-04-27, 19:33

If you do get it working with an older commit, please see http://ipxe.org/howto/bisect for how to figure out what broke it and report so that it can try to be fixed, thanks!

TheShich · 2018-05-13, 21:39

No luck with older iPXE version (1.0.0+). No luck with gPXE too. Same behavior as above.

***NiKiZe*** · 2018-05-13, 22:23

Try building with DEBUG=tulip enabled
and then run thru: http://ipxe.org/dev/drvtest/link

Gelip · (This post was last modified: 2018-05-14 19:05 by Gelip.)

If NIC is very old try also very old network boot e.g. TCP/IP BOOT-PROM -> incom.de. DECchip 21142/43 driver is on Disk 2:
[Image: f9266e38f85d14e457bb7f7ead61b004-full.png]

[Image: f9266e38f85d14e457bb7f7ead61b004-full.png]

http://ftp.upf.br/pub/linux/remote_boot/
http://www.kanoistika.sk/bobovsky/PC-public/remoteboot/

TheShich · 2018-06-12, 11:43

I tried http://ipxe.org/dev/drvtest/link with debug. Everything is fine until step 6. After cable disconnect, link is still up on step 7. And I see lots of "TX Timeout!" messages when I tired to do dhcp. I couldn't download TCP/IP BOOT-PROM from link above (they have some kind of registration form), but I've tried etherboot and gpxe without success.