I have an Intel Quad-port Gigabit Ethernet controller in an HP ML310e Gen 8 v2 server (which also has an onboard dual-port Broadcom BCM5720).

When I boot from an Ubuntu Desktop live USB (16.04), all six ports work exactly as expected: when a cable is connected they immediately get a link, the LED on the port lights immediately and the corresponding one on my switch lights.

I installed Ubuntu Server (16.04), and none of the Intel ports get a link at all. The LEDs never light and ethtool reports "Link detected: no" for each port. Using proved-good cables. The Broadcom ports work fine. I am able to make the LEDs for each port on the Intel card blink with ethtool -p.

I found a report of an ostensibly similar problem here: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=159454 However that was resolved by:

echo on > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:09\:00.0/power/control

(for each of the correct PCI ids) - and in my case that key is already set to 'on'.

As the card works perfectly when I boot into a Live USB desktop, I believe that card and cabling is fine, but I'm unable to get it to work from an installed Ubuntu Server. This is the third from-scratch install I've tried now. In previous attempts I also tried downloading and building e1000e drivers from Intel's site, but that made no difference at all.

Would really appreciate any advice the community can give - thanks.

lshw reports:

driver=e1000e driverversion=3.2.6-k firmware=5.12-2

Full relevant output from lscpi , lshw and uname :

~$ lspci -nnk | grep -i eth 03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5720 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:165f] Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company NetXtreme BCM5720 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [103c:2133] 03:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5720 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:165f] Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company NetXtreme BCM5720 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [103c:2133] 09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) [8086:10bc] (rev 06) 09:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) [8086:10bc] (rev 06) 0a:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) [8086:10bc] (rev 06) 0a:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) [8086:10bc] (rev 06) ~$ lshw -C net *-network:0 DISABLED description: Ethernet interface product: 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0 logical name: enp9s0f0 version: 06 serial: 00:24:81<redacted because paranoia> capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=3.2.6-k firmware=5.12-2 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:30 memory:fbce0000-fbcfffff memory:fbc00000-fbc7ffff ioport:4000(size=32) *-network:1 DISABLED description: Ethernet interface product: 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0.1 bus info: pci@0000:09:00.1 logical name: enp9s0f1 version: 06 serial: 00:24:81:<redacted> capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=3.2.6-k firmware=5.12-2 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:32 memory:fbbe0000-fbbfffff memory:fbb00000-fbb7ffff ioport:4020(size=32) *-network:0 DISABLED description: Ethernet interface product: 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:0a:00.0 logical name: enp10s0f0 version: 06 serial: 00:24:81:<redacted> capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=3.2.6-k firmware=5.12-2 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:33 memory:fbee0000-fbefffff memory:fbe00000-fbe7ffff ioport:5000(size=32) *-network:1 DISABLED description: Ethernet interface product: 82571EB Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Copper) vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0.1 bus info: pci@0000:0a:00.1 logical name: enp10s0f1 version: 06 serial: 00:24:81:<redacted> capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=3.2.6-k firmware=5.12-2 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:34 memory:fbde0000-fbdfffff memory:fbd00000-fbd7ffff ioport:5020(size=32) *-network:0 description: Ethernet interface product: NetXtreme BCM5720 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: eno1 version: 00 serial: 10:60:4b:ee:39:30 size: 1Gbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm vpd msi msix pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.137 duplex=full firmware=5720-v1.30 NCSI v1.1.15.0 ip=10.0.1.141 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=1Gbit/s resources: irq:17 memory:fabf0000-fabfffff memory:fabe0000-fabeffff memory:fabd0000-fabdffff memory:f8000000-f801ffff *-network:1 DISABLED description: Ethernet interface product: NetXtreme BCM5720 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 0.1 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.1 logical name: eno2 version: 00 serial: 10:60:4b:ee:39:31 capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm vpd msi msix pciexpress bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=tg3 driverversion=3.137 firmware=5720-v1.30 NCSI v1.1.15.0 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:18 memory:fabc0000-fabcffff memory:fabb0000-fabbffff memory:faba0000-fabaffff memory:f8020000-f803ffff $ uname -a Linux victorious 4.4.0-31-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 13 00:07:12 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Further outputs as requested: