[ipxe-devel] Request for Network support for HP Elitebook 745 G3 (Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Plus)

[Christian Nilsson]

 Hi,
Sorry about 14e4-1687 not being included, let me return to that further down...

On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:07 PM, Doose, Michael <mdoose at qualcomm.com> wrote:
> Christian,
>
> Thanks so much for the response, I apologize for not better explaining our situation. I hope the information below helps make things more clear. I work on the Windows side and have a Unix engineer helping with the updates on the pxe/ipxe side.
>
> We are now using iPXE 1.0.0+ (8f01). I have reached out to have the unit folks check the niclist.pl for the Broadcom NIC.

That is very old!
commit 8f0173b5c8ac6de9e9fa8115e37357c2aeb88101
Date:   Mon Dec 9 15:32:42 2013 +0000

Please use latest git master, cloning from
https://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git is recommended

>
> The error warning received was the following which referenced Legacy: "iPXE initializing devices...WARNING: Using legacy NIC wrapper on 00:00:00:00:00:00"
>
> On all our other systems we see: "iPXE initializing devices...ok"
>
> We are using .kkpxe with WIMBOOT and BOOTMGR.EXE, no EFI stuff. We are also chain loading from SYSLINUX PXE to iPXE

Why kkpxe?, and what's your boot path/steps up to the above "Using
legacy NIC wrapper" message?
For example is it loaded from USB or is pxelinux involved somewhere etc.
Are you using ipxe.* or undionly.*
if you use undionly.kpxe (note not kkpxe) then ipxe will use the
BIOS/Firmware drivers, you could in that case try to upgrade BIOS.
if you use ipxe.pxe (don't use kpxe when using this variant) then it
will only use ipxes native drivers, since none exist that won't work,
but it shouldn't try to detect a non existing nic.
Or build bin/14e41687.pxe (see below for info about adding support)
Another alternative would be to test with .usb version on a USB stick:
http://ipxe.org/download#using_a_boot_cd-rom_or_usb_key


>
> In BIOS we have configured legacy mode:
> Configure Legacy Support and Secure boot : "Legacy Support Enable and Secure Boot Disable"
>
> -Mike

Now about The missing 14e4-1687, I'm quite sure I have added that to a
build myself.
You could try to add it to tg3.c and see if it works

PCI_ROM(0x14e4, 0x1687, "14e4-1687", "14e4-1687", 0),
or patch at: http://ur1.ca/oh6r6

If it does not work then build with debugging enabled and see if that
gives anything:
make bin/14e41687.pxe DEBUG=tg3
This will enable the DBG statements in the tg3.c file
for even more debug output use DEBUG=tg3,tg3_hw,tg3_phy

If it works, it would be appriciated if you could run thru the
testlist at http://ipxe.org/dev/driver
If everything passes then we can add it to the main repo (it will
probably be added if it works to boot with since it's better then
nothing, but the more tested the better)

/Christian


>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian Nilsson [mailto:nikize at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2016 11:17 AM
> To: Doose, Michael <mdoose at qualcomm.com>
> Cc: ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org
> Subject: Re: [ipxe-devel] Request for Network support for HP Elitebook 745 G3 (Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Plus)
>
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 7:48 PM, Doose, Michael <mdoose at qualcomm.com> wrote:
>> Hey team,
>>
>> I pulled down the latest build this morning to try and add support for
>> the new HP Elitebook 745 G3 (AMD) based notebook, but it is still
>> defaulting to the Legacy and failing with all zeroes as the Mac Address.
>>
>> This unit runs a “Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Plus” LAN
>> Adapter. Is there anything you can suggest to try and add support for this unit?
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> Misc Hardware Info:
>>
>> Hardware IDs:
>> PCI\VEN_14E4&DEV_1687
>
> Hi,
>
> The 14e4-1687 have native supported in ipxe and should work, the first thing to check in cases like this is the niclist that can be generated by niclist.pl in the util directory.
>
> What do you mean by Legacy? Assuming you are using the latest git master, what are your build command and which ipxe file are you using?
> legacy might mean undionly.kpxe which do not have any native drivers in it. you need ipxe.pxe or ipxe.efi depending on platform, you could also build 14e41687.pxe/.efi to only support the specific nic.
>
> Your issues might also be related to buggy HP firmware:
> http://lists.ipxe.org/pipermail/ipxe-devel/2015-November/004476.html
>
> Hope it helps, otherwise you can follow some of the steps described in the above email thread and see if that gets you any further.
>
> /Christian