The utility communicates directly with the hardware controller of the Network Interface Card (NIC). It accesses the non-volatile memory (EEPROM) where the firmware and configuration settings (such as MAC addresses, PCIe link speeds, and Wake-on-LAN settings) are stored.

: Intel is deprecating eeupdate in favor of nvmupdate and firmware update over devlink (Linux) for newer devices (E810, E822).

Once eeupdate64eefi runs, it will scan the PCIe bus for Intel Ethernet adapters. A successful detection output looks like: