Hi Andy,

Yes, I should have been a little more concise when stating that I had resolved the issue I was having, starting an RTL8019AS Ethernet network interface controller chip without the configuration EEPROM.

I've previously stumbled upon and then 'filed' code that goes to great lengths to have the microcontroller emulate an EEPROM during the startup procedure. I thought I was going to have to go that route, but a quick check of a working NIC with the EEPROM removed confirmed that the RTL8019AS will hapily startup without it. It's then a simple matter of writing the missing data to the appropriate network controller configuration registers after startup.

I couldn't be happier with that result. :-)