IGEL H710C ThinClient - not recognizing PCIe NIC. Possible BIOS mod?

[zetka]

Great minds of bios-mods forum,
I come to you for help. This is how my problem looks :
I have few  IGEL H710C ThinClients and decided to make some good use of them - make a pfsense router. Just play with it and learn new things about networking etc. I also have few Intel PRO/1000 ET NICs ( 0HM9JY ).  I've installed pfsense, plugged in the NIC... pfsense only sees crappy onboard Realtek RTL18111D controller... Checked BIOS - no options for network controllers ( except for onboard/PCIe ROM ). During booting, BIOS doesn't see Intel's NIC... also, quite often, board won't boot at all with NIC installed - black screen, beeps once...and that's all. I've tried to physically disable Realtek controller ( isolating its PCIe bus by pulling down one of it's controll pins). It disapears from the system but that doesn't change anything. 
In next step, I installed Windows 7 embedded on the machine. No luck. But once i got the system running with Intel's NIC, I installed it's drivers ( at this point only Realtek was in the device manager ) ..and voila! I got that NIC recognized and seen in device manager ! But.. it said something about not having enough resources to run properly ( it was disabled ). Theeen.. i disabled Realtek controller from the device manager ...and Intel's NIC was up an running! Ofcourse after rebooot, same storry - system wont boot ( black screen, one beep).
So i thought i can modify BIOS somehow...On boot screen it shows Poenix-Award  .. In RW Anything i see : Vendor String1 - "Phoenix Technologies, LTD", BIOS Version String2 - "6.00 PG". I used Phoenix tool to read the BIOS - got 1024kb .ROM file. Used external flash programmer and flashroom to read it - got same size .bin file... BUT.. i cant open those files in any BIOS mod software i could find...
Is there anything that can be done? The easiest way would be getting different NIC to try, but those are quite pricy ... Oh, and the system works if i plug in a Wireless PCIe card.. just that Intel's NIC isn't working.. 
Any help and suggestions are greatly apreciated !

Attached .rom file from Phoenix tool...

[zetka]

I found out that this is Award BIOS... So i was able to read it again with Award flsh reader and open it in Award BIOS Editor v1.0 but... I don't see anything obvious there noob like me can change.. IRQ table is empty..

[LLC]

doesn't see Intel's NIC... also, quite often, board won't boot at all with NIC installed

If it's happends when you not change any options, may be bad contact of card in the pcie slot ?
Resources is mean pcie lane x4 link not free ?

[zetka]

That was the first thing I checked - all connections ( continuity ) swapped cards, removed riser board, checked all voltages, changed mainboards etc...
The thing with not booting frm time to time has something to do with internal flash of the NIC - Intel provides a flash configuration tool for changing preboot options - every time I change it to defaults on another system ( where NIC is working without issues ), ThinClient is booting ..
I might try to compile coreboot and try it.. but last time i tried that, I wasn't able to compile coreboot at all for some strange reasons .. Oh well.. Learning time again ...