Quad port NIC

tom01

tom01

tom01

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1 May 2012
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103
Hey Guys,

So I'm having a bit of trouble with finding a quad port NIC for my Dell PowerEdge T20. Has to be second hand really as new is just too expensive.

I managed to find what I thought was a good candidate on fleabay however after failing to get it to present in the BIOS or O/S and after talking to Dell Support who then identified it was a 1st Gen card which was incompatible with my server I'm a bit stumped.

The card which didn't work was an IBM 39Y6138 Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad Port PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter. FRU PN: 39Y6138 / PN SN: 39Y6137

Can anyone recommend a known working NIC for this server? Thanks in advance.
 
Hi,

I've just tested my HP NCT364T (436431-001)in my T20. Only a quick test for now as I either don't have or can't find the full height bracket to secure it permanently.

Seems to work fine in the lower PCI-E slot x16 (x4 electrical)

I'm running Xen Server, it was detected ok with lspci @ the console, I then added the card to the available resources with a scan and all 4 ports showed up as eth1 - eth4 in the XEN web client. eth0 being the primary T20 interface.

Didn't try the main x16(x16) slot as I have a perc 310 flashed to IT in that slot.

Plenty of server pulls on a well known auction site for the price of a couple of cases of beer.

Regards
AD
 
tom01 said:
Hey Guys,
So I'm having a bit of trouble with finding a quad port NIC for my Dell PowerEdge T20. Has to be second hand really as new is just too expensive.
I managed to find what I thought was a good candidate on fleabay however after failing to get it to present in the BIOS or O/S and after talking to Dell Support who then identified it was a 1st Gen card which was incompatible with my server I'm a bit stumped.
The card which didn't work was an IBM 39Y6138 Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad Port PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter. FRU PN: 39Y6138 / PN SN: 39Y6137
Can anyone recommend a known working NIC for this server? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Have you tried one of the Dell variants of the Intel NIC as I've got a DELL X3959 INTEL Pro/1000 PT which works fine in my TS140. Also PCI-e is backwards compatible so a 1st gen card should still work in a Gen 3 slot :)
 
Hi Guys,

Thank you both for your input. :D Confusion and bewilderment has definitely set in now!

In the end I pulled the trigger and bought an Intel i350-T4 Quad Network Adapter which as far as I can tell on Dells site, linked below, it should be a supported NIC for this server.
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/intel-network-cards

Interesting that you have stated that the HP NC364T appeared to work correctly in the T20 as that card I believe is PCIe 1.01a which if going by what Dell said about the IBM 39Y6138 that I bought and couldn't get to work (Also PCIe 1.01a) should by that logic, fail to work for me too. :confused:

I too believed PCIe was backwards compatible however Dell support stated to me that the IBM NIC was not suitable for the T20 as it was 1st Gen and the T20 only supported Gen 2 and 3 NICs hence now going down the route of i350-T4.

Just by chance I actually have a HP NC364T being delivered to me this week for another box on another project I'm working on so I'm almost tempted to try the HP in the T20 and see if I get the same result, I almost certainly want this not to be the cause as that i350-T4 wasn't cheap and was 4x the cost of the NC364T NIC. :eek:

Any one have any more input on PCIe being backwards compatible? :confused: :D
 
tom01 said:
Hi Guys,
Thank you both for your input. :D Confusion and bewilderment has definitely set in now!
In the end I pulled the trigger and bought an Intel i350-T4 Quad Network Adapter which as far as I can tell on Dells site, linked below, it should be a supported NIC for this server.
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/intel-network-cards
Interesting that you have stated that the HP NC364T appeared to work correctly in the T20 as that card I believe is PCIe 1.01a which if going by what Dell said about the IBM 39Y6138 that I bought and couldn't get to work (Also PCIe 1.01a) should by that logic, fail to work for me too. :confused:
I too believed PCIe was backwards compatible however Dell support stated to me that the IBM NIC was not suitable for the T20 as it was 1st Gen and the T20 only supported Gen 2 and 3 NICs hence now going down the route of i350-T4.
Just by chance I actually have a HP NC364T being delivered to me this week for another box on another project I'm working on so I'm almost tempted to try the HP in the T20 and see if I get the same result, I almost certainly want this not to be the cause as that i350-T4 wasn't cheap and was 4x the cost of the NC364T NIC. :eek:
Any one have any more input on PCIe being backwards compatible? :confused: :D
Click to expand...
That is an expensive NIC which should work however I'm not too happy with Dells response as I'm positive the PCI-e standard states a PCI-e 1.0 card must work in a PCI-e 3.0 slot and vice versa so if that's not the case then they are breaking standards. Anyway good luck with the NIC (Either way, I personally prefer the Intel NICs over HP and other offerings) :)
 
Hi,

Well my second NC364T arrived this week (full height bracket, slimline card) and is now installed in the Dell T20 and working perfectly under XenServer. Have a number of VM's attached to it and data transfers hit > 80MB/sec on larger files. A little limited by spinning rust but in line with my expectations.

I had planned to just get a full height bracket for my existing card and swap a single or dual intel nic into the N40L, however these were around the same price with no guaranteed compatibility so I just got another.

What are you expecting to see in the bios / OS ? Which OS did you try?

I simply added the card, booted Xen and then ran the xe pif-scan command (with uuid) and card appeared, linked it to a VM and it was away.

Definitely worth giving one a go if you have one coming.

To my knowledge most PCI-E cards are inter-operable though dell does state gen 3.0 and gen 2.0 in the manual.

Just having a browse around and there seems to be a specific issue with some intel PT quad port cards, fixed in the later versions

https://communities.intel.com/thread/40117?start=0&tstart=0

The affected models are all the full height card with 2 black heatsinks. The low profile card (which can be fitted with either a low profile or full height bracket) with a single larger silver heatsink are reported to work ok.

The HP364T is the low profile, single silver heatsink

Good luck

AD


Edit

Also see here for the model number you specify
https://support.podc.sl.edst.ibm.com/support/home/docdisplay?lndocid=migr-5079623
 
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