Intel 82579V LAN Chip Issues

[Old_Biker]

Since building a new system with a Gigabyte Z77-UD5H motherboard last June, I have experienced continual intermittent failures of the 82579V gigabit ethernet drivers loading for about 80% of the boot-ups of Windows 7.

I have tried the drivers from the motherboard website and even tried later releases from Intel, but all failed to cure the problem.

Even a complete re-installation of Windows failed to improve the situation, as the driver misloads occurred before all of the updates for Windows were installed (no other programs yet installed).

I found little to no help in my searches online.

However, Intel seem to accept that their chip has some issues as they released one piece of software to aid the recognition of their chip's identity in Windows 7 and 8. Unfortunately, this did not help me as mine was always correctly identified, but the drivers failed to load.

Has anyone in these forums experienced similar failures and discovered a solution to the problem?

I have resorted to disabling the Intel device and using the Atheros interface, which works perfectly. Of course this means that I have only one working ethernet port instead of two.

Any helpful advice would be most welcome.

[shaithis]

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...%207%20(64-bit
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...2579V&lang=eng

And double check no risers are shorting on the mobo.

[carvedeye]

Have you tried updating the bios?

[Old_Biker]

Hi Shaithis.

Thank you for advising me of the references that you discovered in relation to my Intel LAN issue.

I also found the 'shorting risers' thread and can confirm that it is not the cause of my problem.

The Intel driver links that you suggested point to a version that I have already tried. Unfortunately they also failed to resolve the issue.

Thanks again for your helpful suggestions.

[Old_Biker]

Hi carvedeye.

Thank you for suggesting I update the BIOS.

I am currently using the latest stable BIOS (F14) with my system, but I have not tried the F15o beta BIOS which promises to "Improve LAN compatibility".

Because the description is so brief and not specific about the nature of the improvement, I have not deviated from my normal practice of using only stable BIOS releases.

If I can obtain confirmation that the beta BIOS improvement applies to my specific difficulty, then I may alter my habits and try it out.

Thanks again for your helpful suggestion.

[DanceswithUnix]

Try booting from a Linux Live CD. Knoppix is the traditional favourite for stuff like this.

If the boot up messages fly past a bit too quick, then pulling up a console and typing:

dmesg | grep eth

to see ethernet specific boot debug. You can also use:

dmesg | more

will let you peruse the boot messages once the box is up. Sometimes Linux is a lot more honest than Windows in describing what horrors it finds.

If the port just works under Linux, then that is useful to know too

[shaithis]

The other possibility is that the Intel chip (and/or the mobo) is duff.

With Intel LAN chips, drivers are as good as you are going to see for just about any piece of hardware. They are de-facto for high availability servers and as such the drivers are normally rock-solid. When you dig around most people with the same issue as you find its a short or mobo bios.....which is what I would expect.

[Old_Biker]

Try booting from a Linux Live CD. Knoppix is the traditional favourite for stuff like this.

If the boot up messages fly past a bit too quick, then pulling up a console and typing:

dmesg | grep eth

I downloaded the Knoppix 7.0.5 Live DVD .iso and tried your suggested entry in a console and received "[63.130492] IPv6: ADDRCONF (NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready" in response, so Knoppix couldn't work around the issue any better than Windows 7.

However, after making the change detailed in my next post (in reply to posts from carvedeye and shaithis) the Intel NIC chip was functioning correctly with Windows 7 and Knoppix (Compiz looks very shiny!), so all is now sorted on ethernet thanks.

[Old_Biker]

Hi carvedeye and shaithis,

My thanks to both of you for suggesting the BIOS might be causing the difficulty with the Intel NIC chip on my Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H motherboard.

I finally decided to update to the F15o beta BIOS that I had previously avoided.

Afterwards, Windows 7 detected the Intel 82579V NIC chip and another device (simple communications controller) that turned out to be the Intel Management Engine Interface.

In my haste to reinstall Windows using BIOS F14, I had omitted to include the drivers for it and Windows couldn't see it with that version BIOS anyway!

After installing the Intel drivers for the Management Engine and Ethernet devices, the networking issues were solved.

The system has now been happily booting (and rebooting) for two days with 100% detection of the Ethernet functions, so it looks as though the BIOS update was the solution.

Thanks again for your helpful suggestions (especially shaithis for pointing out that Intel Ethernet chips are used in high availability servers and very reliable).