Looking for an ASUS motherboard that net boots...

[Colin McGregor]

On 8/15/08, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 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?

The board has the MAC address : db:b3:db:60:1d:00 . This is a
broadcast MAC address.

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

If I boot a live CD the the software will detect that I have an
invalid MAC address. The software will then change the MAC address to
a valid value selected at random. This is an issue as the server
software uses the MAC address to know what configuration files to be
loaded into which client machine(s)...

> 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.

The motherboard sends an invalid MAC address across the network and
any software that respects the IEEE 802 standard will not work.

The way ASUS could fix this would be to put a valid MAC address into
the BIOS. Alternatively, I gather one of the other motherboard
builders that had the same issue offers a free MS-DOS (gag) utility
that lets you change the MAC address in EEROM to anything you want
(not ideal, but this is a workable solution). If ASUS offered this
change MAC address utility, I could run MS-DOS once, change the MAC
address and have a working netbooting system...

The whole point of this exercise was to build a small, light weight,
low power, quiet PC. If during set-up I need to connect a floppy drive
or a CD-ROM drive as a one time event, I could live with that. What I
am not willing to tolerate is having to keep any sort of drive
(floppy, optical or hard drive) as a permenate part of the system.

>> 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.

Well, if I could even change just the first byte of the MAC address I
could be off to the races, but with an invalid value there, and no way
to change the MAC address I am @#$%.

Colin McGregor

> --
> Len Sorensen
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