PS/2 mice causing RTL8139+Asus mes/n+etherboot 4.2 to not boot

[Bill Broadley <bill@math.ucdavis.edu>]

We've been going mad trying to get our new Asus MES-N + etherboot-4.2 prom 
diskless linux boxes to boot.

If we insert a ps/2 mouse it won't boot, the BIOS claims the ethernet
card is on the irq we select (i.e. 5,7,9,10 or similiar), but it seems
to be conflicting with the mouse (usually at 12).  We have tried a significant
number of changes to try to get this to work.

Any ideas if it's a hardware problem? Bios? Etherboot config?
Or similiar?

Basically what happens is:
Etheretboot/32 version 4.2.5 for [RTL8139]
Found SMC E210/10 at 0xA800, ROM address 0X0000000
Probing...[RTL8139]RTL8139 driver for etherboot-4.2 I/O A800 00:E):29:53:25:F8
Searching for server (DHCP)...
My IP 169.237.99.138, Server IP 169.237.99.55, GW IP 169.237.99.254
Loading /tftpboot/lts/vmlinuz.rt8139 ... <sleep
<sleep>
...

Without the mouse all is good...

Does etherboot assign an IRQ that somehow bios (before netboot) and linux
(after netboot) can't see?

Is it the fault of the bootable network card vendor?  The motherboard
bios?  Something else?

--
Bill Broadley
bill@math.ucdavis.edu
Mathematics, UC Davis
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