Comment 22 for bug 530348

@austin_is:

I'm still stumped, but the one difference I see in my system and yours (I don't have e100, so I can't compare exactly) is that I don't have any firmware in /lib/firmware. My firmware files exist only under the /lib/firmware/`uname -r`/ directory. I don't think that removing the firmware under /lib/firmware should make a difference, but if you are desperate you can try that.

Note: I think you should be able to test this without rebooting. You need to 'rmmod e100 && modprobe e100', but then you need to try bringing it up to load the firmware: 'ifconfig eth0 up'. This is based on a cursory glance over the driver code.