Hi kannan,

> Again, does anyone have any clue as to what's going on?

I just had the same problem and this is how i fixed it...

Please remove the system board from the HP containing the LAN interface.
On the board, there is a jumper block marked "LAN". One of those jumpers
has the description "REM". Please toggle this jumper and try to boot
again. It looks like you can disable network boots using this jumper, at
least it stopped right after the rboot and never sent the rarp when this
jumper was in the wrong position...

It might work for you, as well...

Cheers,
Jochen