So have run into this intermittently while doing HP server builds over the past month, but havent really paid it the attention it deserves until today…  – utilising the HP PSP 8.7.

I have also found some other people now having this issue too – http://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2011/03/hp-network-interface-does-not-start/

Unfortunately, my builds are via SCCM – and if the network dies half way through a build – the rest of the build does not complete – and its not really feasible to manually intervene for larger amounts of servers.

Since PSP 9.0 has been released, i have moved my server builds on to that – and am hoping that the issue has been resolved…. ill report back my findings tommorow.

*edit* – looks as if the PSP 9.0 has helped on the 2 builds so far…. will run more through-out the day.

On a side note, i downloaded and used the  HP SPP – as an alternative – the ILO firmware was upgraded to 2.07 and now the fans are very noisey… as per most things with HP – 2 steps forward, 2 steps back….. so noisey that it needs resolving otherwise its not an appropriate site server anymore.