iPXE iSCSI boot problems with Intel x520

[jabbr]

I am having trouble ipxe booting with Intel x520 (flashed for PXE boot).

The initial DHCP works and the NIC downloads pxelinux.cfg/default:

KERNEL IPXE.KRN
INITRD win8.ipxe

When this script is being run the first command is:
dhcp

which fails with a message that both interfaces net0 and net1 are "Down". At this point the leds on the NIC are dark. If I Ctrl-B into the command line, same problem and nothing I do lights up the leds, even if I'm on IPXE command line and wait awhile (spanning-tree is disabled on my switch). Unsure what to do?