Dq67ep Drivers

[Jeannine Lander]

Ivegot the Intel DQ67EP board with the Intel 82579LM onboard NIC. Ive got the machine running Windows7 64bit. Ive got this problem where randomly it drops from Gigabit to 10Mbps and will never negoiate back to gigabit. I can disconnect the cable, reconnect it, dont work. I can plug that same cable into another machine like my Lenovo T420 laptop, and it has no issues connecting gigabit, so I know its not the cable, or port, or Hub. However still plugged into a different port of the hub, still dont work. Plugged it into a different hub, still dont work, still keeps sitting at 10Mbps.

ONLY way I can get this working is one of two ways. I have to unplug power, not just shut it down. I need to kill power from the board entirely. Wait 10secs, then plug it back in. Then upon starting up, its set to gigabit with no issues. Other way is to change a setting in Bios which when you exit/save it causes it to kill power to the board for a second. So the fact that killing power to the board fixes it, tells me its some hardware or firmware level issue, clearly not the driver.

Now to explain when it happens, I do have the machine set to sleep and wake at certain times. Most of the time it sleeps fine, wakes up fine and still sits at Gigabit. Theres no explanation on how many times it takes before it decides to go into some stuck state of only negoiating at 10Mbps. Even going into Device Manager and setting it to 100Mbps, or 1000Mbps, Half or Full duplex does nothing. It disconnects the Link and Reconnects but only sits at 10Mbps. Im normally connected via the IntelAMT via RealVNC.

This is where I think I see the problem. When it boots and starts on gigabit fine, its all great. Then when the computer is put to standby mode, I can see that the link (just by looking at the Hub port light) changes color which means it just dropped from Gigabit to 10mpbs. If I wake the computer (either by WOL or Manually via power button) it will resume from standby and be in Windows, however its now stuck in 10mpbs mode only.

Turn off the computer now, and the hub port light still shows its in 10mpbs mode. So clearly this is a hardware or bios issue where for some reason it just drops the link speed and gets stuck in that state.

I did forget to mention that I use and configured IntelAMT. So I thought that might explain why the NIC is still powered and linked to the network hub even though the machine is completely off (but still plugged in).

Ive tried as I mentioned multiple different cables so I know its not the cables since the same cables work on a Lenovo T420 laptop (gigabit capable), Gigabyte X58 based motherboard desktop (with intel gigabit lan).

Im just slightly at a loss on why when this happens it gets in this stuck mode where like I said only way to "reset" it is to basically unplug power from the board by disconnect power plug, simply turning it off dont work as power is still going to the board.

I think I mentioned previously that I went to 0055 Bios update and thought that was the cause, then backed it down to 0054 and still reproduced it. But its not reproducable all the time lately. I know that doesnt help. But most of the time when its put to sleep it will go into 10Mbps mode and refuse to come out. Sometimes it works.

Since then I basically downgraded to 0054, then was able to replicate it. Then I moved back upto 0055 and thought let me see if its the Bios, and since then have been unsuccessull at replicating it. I goes to sleep every night at 1am and wakes at 11am. So maybe this will be closed cause I cannot for the life of me get it to replicate either.

We have exactly the same behaviour, this o HP dc7800 (older desktop) but also on latest and greatest HP 8460p notebook from 2011. Whenever we make a remote connection either using the Intel Developper tools console or VNC Plus, the speed goes down to 10Mbps. We have HP Procurve switches.

Everytime I now sleep the computer, and then wake it, can be waking it say in 1min or even 10hrs, the link always drops to 10Mbps now. Only way to get it to come back is by completely shutting down, not just shutdown the computer. Like I said before power plug has to come out or in my case flip the power switch on the back of the power supply itself which truly kills power to the Motherboard. You have to leave it disconnected until the network light stops blinking or goes away.

Or is there a way to keep the link from going to 10Mbps when it goes to sleep mode? Cant the board maintain the link at say Gigabit even when its sleeping? Something is not right here on why it keeps doing this.

To answer the questions from Intel previously, Im using the onboard video only, no discrete card. There is no video monitor hooked up on this. It really just has power, and network. All work is normally done through IntelAMT/RealVNC on this machine. The processor is the i7 2600, not the i7 2600k which doesnt support vPro (which then I wouldnt get IntelAMT to work either).

So I tried to use the "load bios defaults" three times in a row, like load the defaults, reboot, go back into bios, load the defaults, reboot, repeat. I know when programming NVRAM and other things that many times its recommended to clear it 3x but there is no real option in the Bios loading or anywhere to clear it all to make sure you get a clean base and no artifacts are left behind.

What I did notice is that I did a test where I have my machine set to sleep (scheduled task in win7) at 1am, then it wakes again (scheduled task) at 11am. I did this 3 days in a row and didnt have an issue. Today before it woke, I decided to RealVNC (using IntelAMT) into the box a few minutes before it was to wake. It woke as scheduled, however it retained only a 10mpbs link now. So seems like being remoted in also causes the issue.

Again, is there not a way to just tell it to retain the link speed at all times? Why does it need to drop to 10mpbs during sleep mode? Can it not just run at say gigabit speed which in sleep mode? I think thats part of the problem or temporary workaround. Because it seems its clear when it goes to 10mpbs speed mode in sleep and when it wakes, it attempts to renogiate to higher speed and sometimes fails. Where its mind boggling is why it refuses then even after a reboot, or even power down (without killing power to the board) to renegoiate at a higher speed? Even if I force the option in Windows to say set at 1000mbps it refuses.

Maybe it has something to do with WOL or IntelAMT keeping that link always active or something, im speculating here. But Id love to run some debugs for you folks to help nail this. Something is clearly wrong here.

Sorry to hear about the issues you are having with the speed negotiation. The speed cannot be set higher in sleep mode, because the power to maintain a gigabit connection is too high. Of course, the ideal thing of course is that when you wake back up the speed and duplex negotiation would work properly. I have a few ideas for you, but I do not recall anything specific as to 10Mbps instead of negotiating a higher speed.

I noticed the new 17.0 driver a week ago and updated it, so far its been fine. But like I said before its been fine as long as I dont remote into IntelAMT via RealVNC before the machine wakes. I will test to see what happens if it still has this issue if I remote in before the machine wakes.

If I can reproduce the issue again, is there any debug tools I can get? Id love to know why it refuses to negoiate at any other speed. Like I said, I dont understand why even a reboot doesnt fix that. That tells me it cant be the Intel Network Driver (which you referenced to try out). That driver isnt loaded until Windows boots. Even a shutdown doesnt fix it since the board still has power. Its almost something at the hardware/firmware level that gets in some loop or stuck state that refuses to negoiate anything higher than 10mpbs. Only way to solve that is to truly power down the board by cutting off the power on the Power Supply or pulling the plug entirely, waiting about 10secs (or until I see the network light go out on the machine) then plug it back in. Thats why I think its something at the hardware/firmware level.

I don't know of anything you could enable on your board for troubleshooting. I was wondering if you know the version of the Management Engine (ME) driver on your board? I see that the ME drivers are posted at _Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20584 _Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20584. If the issue is related to the ME, then maybe updating this driver would help. This is just an educated guess on my part. The management engine is outside of my area of expertise.

Another thought as to resetting the connection if you get stuck at 10 Mbps. You could try unplugging the Ethernet cable for 10-15 seconds to see if that helps. I don't know if that will work, but it might be easier than pulling the power plug.

Thanks Mark. I will try the unplugging of the cable for 10-15secs. I cant remember if that worked last time, I want to say no because awhile back I remember taking it out and plugging it into my laptop just to make sure it got a sync to Gigabit and it did (which coincidently has the exact same 82579LM NIC - Lenovo T420). Then I remember plugging it back into the DQ67EP and still wouldnt connect to Gigabit. But that was months ago, I will try again and see.

As far as the ME driver, I honestly dont even think I have this driver. Didnt think you needed it. My RealVNC connects straight to the IntelAMT directly so I see KVM like features (bios to boot usability). I know the Bios updates the Intel AMT/ME firmware as well cause I see that flash by during the update.

I will try to install this see if it has any effect on this situation. BTW what exactly does this driver do? Since I seem to have full capabilities right now from a Remote Management. I dont see any Readme or Notes on this.

I don't know the details, but I assume since the package uses the term "drivers" then this is the software that provides the interface between the management engine and the hardware. Like I said before, the management engine is outside my area, so I am really making an educated guess here. The latest drivers might already be installed or included with any Intel AMT updates you made. Also, I don't know if updating the drivers will help at all.

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