issues with Intel Pro/1000 and 1000baseTX

[James Tanis]

I have a FreeBSD v7.0 box it has two Intel Pro/1000 NICs, the one in 
question is:

em1: <Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection Version - 6.7.3> port 
0x2020-0x203f mem 0xd8060000-0xd807ffff,0xd8040000-0xd805ffff irq 19 at 
device 0.1 on pci4

what we get after boot is:

em1: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 
mtu 1500
        options=19b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4>
        ether 00:30:48:xx:xx:xx
        inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
        status: active

The problem is that the NIC refuses to connect at 1000baseTX.

It's connected to a HP Procurve 1700-24 switch which supports 1000baseTX 
on ports 23 and 24. This particular computer is connected on port 24. I 
have a much older end user system which uses the same card (but earlier 
revision), runs Windows XP and is plugged in to port 23. The end user 
system has no problem connecting at 1000baseTX. I have of course tried 
switching ports.

Attempting to force 1000baseTX via:

ifconfig em1 media 1000baseTX mediaopt full-duplex

gets me:

status: no carrier

After forcing the NIC to go 1000baseTX the LEDs on the backpane are both 
off. I can only come to the conclusion that this is a driver issue based 
on previous experience and the simple fact that the end user system is 
capable of connecting at 1000baseTX. Anybody have any suggestions? I'm 
hoping I'm wrong. I'd rather not do an in-place upgrade, this is a 
production system and the main gateway for an entire school, when I do 
not even know for sure whether this will fix the problem. It's worth it 
to me though, having a 1000baseTX uplink from the switch would remove a 
major bottleneck for me.

Any help would be appreciated.

-- 
James Tanis
Technical Coordinator
Computer Science Department
Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School