I cannot IMAGINE this isn't out there far, wide and in bold print somewhere, but I simply can't find a reference.

The base problem is that, even right out of the box, kernel 2.6.18-194.el5 on RHEL 5.5 simply will not properly make a network connection on Broadcom BCM5708 Controllers.

Period.

This one is easy to produce. Pick up a box (like, for instance, an IBM Blade...HS20, HS21, doesn't matter) with these controllers and install RHEL5.5 (or just run an update from RH Network).

Bang, network gone. The interface loads fine, everything shows as running. Ping to loopback and local IP (Static IP Address) comes up ok. Route shows proper gateway on proper interface, but no ping...at all.

I'd love to post several sections of DMESG, network, etc, but at this point I'm on blade console without cut/copy/paste at all.

Does ANYONE have any idea why out of the box BCM5708 won't load network? Anyone have an alternate experience that might limit it down to something on my company's network? Advice?

I've even gone so far as to try Broadcom's latest drivers (2.0.8b) and those also do not work (same problem).

DMESG and the rest recognize the card and load drivers (bnx2). According to everything I know of this OS I should be pinging away, but nada.

I'm having a hard time imagining that the card simply won't work under the latest major release/kernel but I guess stranger things have happened.

At the moment this is more a "Am I just nuts?" post than a "how do I fix it" post...but I'm happy to take any advice I might have missed out there...including "RTFM" links or bug reports I can track describing the problem.

--Illydth

You haven't actually described the problem.
What does "pinging away" actually mean ?

Are you saying that you have no network access ? If so, how are you using it now ?

Thats correct.I cannot ping the server nor I can ping outside world from the server.I am using IBM bladeCenter console.

ping is a specific thing. Can you access anything over the network at all web, ftp, telnet, ssh ?

Nope.ftp, ssh , telnet etc does not work.

Does this help ? (same drivers)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...driver-577324/

You may need to set the HWADDR in your ifcfg-eth* file
http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=2081

Having the exact same problem with the BCM5709 hardware. Linux doesn't have a driver listing if you try to manually add an ethernet device (via the gui - please don't flame me for using it). I've tried everything that's been suggested here to no avail. Now guess what? I setup the second server and the ports worked right out of the box. The first one has bad hardware! Sheesh! I need a drink.