[c-nsp] GBIC troubles redux

[andrew2 at one.net]

Still having issues getting some GBICs working in a pair of NPE-G1's and
I just can't help but feel I'm overlooking something obvious.  Here's
what I've done:

Installed a PA-GE card in each of the 7204 NPE-G1's.  The cards detect
fine, but when the GBICs are inserted into the PA-GE's they aren't
detected.  Tried a few more GBIC's and tried a spare PA-GE with the same
results.  So, to try to tell for sure if the GBIC's were bad, I inserted
one into a 2948G I had lying around where it was detected with no
troubles.  That led me back towards thinking maybe the PA-GE's were
faulty so just for fun I tried inserting the GBIC's into the GBIC slot
of an usused Gig-E port on the NPE itself (both with fiber connected and
without) and get the following result:

sh cont gigabitEthernet 0/3

Interface GigabitEthernet0/3 (idb 0x6322BC14)
Hardware is BCM1250 Internal MAC (Revision unknown)
  network link is down  (NO CARRIER)
  Config is Auto Speed, Auto Duplex
  Selected media-type is RJ45
  GBIC type is unknown (type 0x13)

So it appears to me that the GBIC is good (2948G detects it fine) but
isn't detected by the 7204 regardless of whether it's in the GBIC slot
on the processing engine or in a PA-GE card in one of the slots.  Is it
possible the IOS version I'm using somehow doesn't support GBICs?

sh ver

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software 
IOS (tm) 7200 Software (C7200-IS-M), Version 12.2(15)T16, RELEASE
SOFTWARE (fc2)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2005 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 19-Apr-05 19:33 by ssearch
Image text-base: 0x60008954, data-base: 0x61C02000

Am I right that these things should pretty much just plug in and work or
am I missing something?

One other thing -- the two fiber strands that will connect these GBICs
haven't been used or tested since they were first installed.  I assume
they're still good, but assuming they aren't -- shouldn't the GBICs
still be detected even if they don't have link?

Thanks,

Andrew