We've been doing pxe-boot on our Dell PowerEdge 1650 systems (with dual built-in Intel gigE NICs) for quite a while now through our 100Mb switch.  However, we recently upgraded to a Dell 5224 gigabit switch and, to our dismay, pxeboot no longer worked.  It seems that the DHCP request packets are being corrupted somehow over the gigabit connection.  The same was also true for our PowerEdge 1550s in which we added Intel Pro/1000 XT NICs.  However, we were able to resolve the issue on the 1550s by updating the NIC's version of the Intel Boot Agent within the cards flash memory from 1.0.14 to 1.2.18.

However, we cannot do the same with the 1650s because the NICs are built into the motherboard.  Our Intel update software simply tells us that, because the NICs are built into the motherboard (Lan on Motherboard - LOM), they must be updated through the motherboard flash BIOS.  Unfortunately, I just updated the BIOS on the motherboards to A11 (the latest release), but the Intel Boot Agent was the same old 1.0.14.

So, does anyone have a suggestion for how I might get around this problem (or bring the matter to Dell's attention in such a way that I am taken seriously)?  Has anyone else encountered this problem?