Broadcom NetXtreme ii Driver Issues – Static IP won’t stick
Today I setup a Windows Server 2003 32bit system, and windows did not have any drivers for my network card. This system was a Dell M600 blade (which uses the same Broadcom 57XX series NIC as the rest of Dell’s blade offerings, and 9th generation servers). I downloaded the NetXtreme II drivers directly from Broadcoms site, put them on my flash drive, and then installed on my M600 blade. The drivers were installed, NIC was working, I set a static IP and everything was GREAT! ….
…Until I checked my TCP/IP settings and the system and saw that the system was set to DHCP. Now I was confused. I quickly went to a cmd prompt and did an ipconfig /all. Wait a minute, the IP IS set to my static address. Back to my GUI TCP/IP settings, it’s set to DHCP. Doh! What’s going on here?
“Broadcom NetXtreme II devices have a driver that is intended only for Remote Installation Services (RIS) text mode use and WinPE environments. This driver does not perform well and is not intended for a fully installed Windows® operating system. In some cases, installing this RIS-only driver in the fully installed operating system may lead to some issues:
Additional NetXtreme II devices in Broadcom Advanced Controller Suite (BACS) Inability to assign a static IP address to a NetXtreme II device or NetXtreme II adapters Adapters that are supposed to have a static IP address obtaining Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) addresses .The Broadcom InstallShield Installer does not remove the inf entry or reg entry for the RIS driver created device. The failure to remove this adapters entries in the operating system creates conflicting information about NetXtreme II Network Interface Card (NICs).
To check for this condition:
On the Network Properties page, right-click a NetXtreme II adapter and configure the TCP/IP entry for that device.
Set a static IP address.
Click OK twice to apply the address to the adapter.
Open the device properties again, select TCP/IP and check the static condition versus the dynamic condition.
A system that is experiencing the issue reverts to DHCP and does not maintain the static IP assigned earlier.
To fix this problem, download the ZIP file: BCOMRemove
Follow process.txt which will advise you to run 2 VBS files that will clean your system of all old Broadcom drivers, installations, registry entries, etc. You can then install the drivers suggested for your system (in my case, directly from Dell).
Tags: broadcom, Controller Suite, Dell, dell m600, DHCP, dynamic host configuration, dynamic host configuration protocol, host configuration protocol, network interface card, NetXtreme, system, TCP
