Randomly changing MAC address on Dell 6650

[kalephunk]

Hey all, I've got a Dell 6650 that's driving me crazy. It's randomly changing it's MAC addresses on its two integrated NICs. Like, randomly and dynamically -- in the BIOS, with every keystroke (even arrow keys to change options and maneuver through the screens), the addresses will change by a digit or two, flickering back and forth. Seems to cycle between 4-5 different combinations of MAC addresses. This presents obvious problems, especially when attempting to, say, boot with PXE -- apparently, if it doesn't "pick" the correct the MAC address, it'll freeze with an error after starting the Broadcom PXE boot process. The error is a suspicious "The PCI Vendor IDs do not match!", which Google reports is "an error that should not be seen in a production BIOS". Hrmm.

Interestingly enough, replacing the I/O riser card does nothing -- the new NICs have the same MAC address "flickering" problems, but with different MAC address combinations.

Any suggestions on what could cause this, and what part I need to RMA back to Dell to fix it??

Cheers,
Kale

 

[technome]

something is going on with Dell machines

http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/topics/troubleshooting/networking/ethernet/4124/

Have you pull the berg pin to clear the bios, better yet remove the battery for a few minutes, possible virus within the bios.

 

[kalephunk]

Haven't cleared the BIOS, but I've flashed it to the latest version (A16 from A15); the problems persisted with both BIOS versions. Isn't the BIOS contained on the I/O riser? If there's an issue with the BIOS, I'd imagine that flashing it to a new version (and swapping it!) should fix it, which is why this is boggling me. The link is interesting, but not applicable here -- the issues occur before the OS layer is even loaded -- this is all BIOS level.

Thanks,
Kale