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Is it possible / how to update the firmware (EEPROM image) of Intel Gigabit ethernet cards?

I have multiple HP NC365T NICs based on the Intel Corporation 82580 Gigabit Network Connection. Some of them have different firmware versions:

ethtool -i ens3f0 | grep firmware-version
firmware-version: 3.19.0

AND:

ethtool -i ens2f0 | grep firmware-version
firmware-version: 3.29, 0x8000027a

Does the firmware version matter? To me it doesn't look clean that one server is having cards with different FW versions.

The HP document here on page 24 at the end of the number 14 says "Upgrade EEPROM image. Fix in EEPROM version 3.29. Contact your Intel represenative to obtain updated EEPROM images." Are these images available somewhere AND if I get the image how do I update the firmware?

AirPett
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1 Answers1

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If I google HP NC365T firmware update, the first results has a "Link to drivers, firmware, software and manuals". Clicking into the details of any of the Linux drivers, you can find a readme like this document which states

Firmware component (HPE Intel Online Firmware Upgrade Utility for Linux, firmware-nic-intel) version 1.12.18 or later is recommended for use with this driver set.

So go ahead and search for the flavor of that utility specific for you OS version.

I don't think there's much (really any) consumer hardware that requires you to replace or actually reflash EEPROMs.

And it might matter, or not. You could have a bug in an older firmware that's fixed in a newer version, but you might never run into that bug. There's a slim chance that a new firmware could also have a bug. Staying consistent across your fleet is a good practice though.

mfinni
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