Possible solution for e1000 'EEPROM checksum not valid'

[Jobbe]

Hey folks, just wanted to share this one.
I'm installing my new laptop atm. Eth0 (Intel Pro/1000 ethernet) worked for the first steps of installation but having rebooted on compiling my kernel it refused to transport anymore packets.
The syslog told me something like 'e1000: checksum_validate: EEPROM checksum not valid' from this moment this was the reaction to 'modprobe e1000'. Btw, that's the module for those Intel gigabit adapters.
I did some research and in fact you can find alot of support requests concerning this very problem on the net and no good solutions. There is an ugly workaround (hacking the driver to not read the EEPROM) and an Intel utility to flash corrupted EEPROMs but unfortunately it's DOS or Windows only and the former is not very up-to-date. I did actually find a free DOS 7.1 bootdisk but the util didn't recognise my adapter.
Might be better, because......
A couple of hours my laptop ceased working alltogether. I took it back to the shop, they changed a bar of RAM and ~whopp~ it's all working again.

Thus, if you have this problem, check your RAM.

hth.