PE2950 BCM5708 Firmware problem

[Paul M. Dyer]

Hi, 

I applied the firmware from Dell's Drivers and Downloads page for the Broadcom NICs.  (FRMW_LX_R172680.BIN)   Unfortunately, now the NICs do not work.   I tried adding the Driver to the OS, but the NICs still do not work.   ifup brings the cards up, but ping from outside no longer responds.   Has anyone ever applied this Broadcom firmware successfully?    Is there available the old firmware for fallback to something that works?

My kernel is RHEL 4, 2.6.9-55ELsmp.   The bnx2 driver versions that I have tried are: 

1.4.38 (2.6.9-42.0.10)
1.4.43-rh (2.6.9-55)
1.6.9d (v10.5/T3.5, A04)

Thanks for any feedback.

Paul