Looking for an ASUS motherboard that net boots...

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 09:10:03PM -0400, Colin McGregor wrote:
> I've previously noted on this mailing list the problems I have had
> attempting to get an ASUS M2N-MX SE Plus motherboard to net boot
> (bottom line, I have shipped the motherboard to ASUS twice, they have
> shipped the motherboard back twice and I still have a motherboard with
> a broadcast MAC address, grumble)...

So what exactly is the MAC addres that the board is sending when trying
to network boot right now?

What MAC address does it have once in Linux if you boot a live cd or
such?

If it sends a correct MAC address to get its IP and start booting but is
only wrong once you hit linux, then you simply need a newer kernel, or
to file a bug report because this is a known issue with the reverse
engineered forcedeth driver and not actually a problem with the board.
If the board is able to send a request to start booting from the network
and load the kernel and start executing the kernel, then there is
NOTHING wrong with your board, only with your kernel/network driver and
there is nothing Asus can do to fix it for you.

> In talking to ASUS this afternoon, they suggested they MIGHT be
> willing to replace the M2N-MX SE Plus with a different model
> motherboard. So, before I talk to ASUS tomorrow (Friday August 15th) I
> would like to know what motherboards does ASUS sell that can net boot?
> 
> With the M2N-MX SE Plus I was after a basic microATX motherboard that
> could be tucked into a corner of my bedroom all to act as a diskless
> frontend for my main FE/BE box in the livingroom. So, what I am after
> is a board that:
> 
> - MUST have a valid MAC address for the on-board ethernet port.
> - MUST support net booting.
> 
> As I am in no mood to re-purchase stuff to go with the motherboard I also want:
> - a microATX form factor so I can re-use the HTPC case I have.
> - support for the AMD AM2 3200+ CPU
> - support for   533MHz DDR2 memory
> - on-board video good enough to display 1080p OR have a PCI-Expess
> connector that will allow me to re-use my GeForce 7200 card.
> 
> Nice to have, but not critical, as I might repurpose the motherboard
> 2-3 years down the road would be:
> - SATA raid support, Gigabit ethernet, firewire, etc...
> 
> So, what ASUS motherboards (if any) can make the above cut?

Well unfortunately for an AMD CPU you only seem to have the choices of
ATI and Nvidia for chipset.  I despise ATI chipsets, but unfortunately
it seems you are being hit by the backwards MAC address problem on the
Nvidia board, although I am surprised that could have hit the network
boot code.  For an intel CPU you would have a few more choices.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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