Server grade NIC for a consumer board?

[KingCollins]

Hey guys, random (and possibly dumb) question here.

 

Recently was given a server grade 2-port 10gb NIC from work and I was wondering if there was any hope it would work in a consumer board?

 

The NIC is a HP FlexFabric and can be found here:

https://buy.hpe.com/pdp?prodNum=700759-B21&country=us&locale=en&catId=329290&catlevelmulti=329290_5318625_1011010347_5404524

 

When I installed the NIC and booted up my server, I got no post codes, just the fans running at 100%.

I am assuming because the motherboard had issues posting, it would have nothing to do with drivers?

 

And yes, I know a 10gb NIC is extremely overkill 

 

Thanks.

[NelizMastr]

So your system boots fine with the card removed?

 

Which slot did you put it in?

 

NICs are too dumb to care which kind of board they're in, so it's more likely the card is faulty.

[KingCollins]

Yeah, the system boots fine just using the on-board NIC.

 

I cannot remember the exact slot but I believe it was the x16 slot. Obviously not using all of the lanes, but should be fine.

 

There is plenty of OS drivers for Windows Server and so on, just trying to get it to boot is the problem.

[NelizMastr]

4 minutes ago, KingCollins said:

There is plenty of OS drivers for Windows Server and so on, just trying to get it to boot is the problem.

Again, a NIC is a pretty dumb card, so if it prohibits POST that means it can't complete a self test, which usually means it's faulty. There's no way to confirm without testing it in a HP server or a different board, though.

[KingCollins]

1 minute ago, NelizMastr said:

Again, a NIC is a pretty dumb card, so if it prohibits POST that means it can't complete a self test, which usually means it's faulty. There's no way to confirm without testing it in a HP server or a different board, though.

Just to confirm that it's my motherboard that's failing to post, and my server is not booting. Just making sure we're all on the same page

 

I might be able to get my hands on another NIC and test it in another machine

[jj9987]

Just for the sake of science, test another PCI Express slot on the motherboard as well.

If that also fails, it's either the NIC or these two are incompatible for some reason.

 

What board are we talking about here?

[KingCollins]

5 minutes ago, jj9987 said:

Just for the sake of science, test another PCI Express slot on the motherboard as well.

If that also fails, it's either the NIC or these two are incompatible for some reason.

 

What board are we talking about here?

I will also try that when I am testing.

 

I currently have an Intel DX79TO x79 motherboard. A pretty high end socket 2011 board at the time. Although it would be a little outdated at this stage.

[beersykins]

I wouldn't immediately say it's faulty.  I have a few NICs that behave the same way, 100% work fine in a server environment but fail to post in a consumer board (Mainly Broadcom NetXtreme 10G cards)

[Falconevo]

The card will likely require above 4G decoding to be enabled in the BIOS, it's doubtful that card will boot without it.

Have a look in your BIOS and enable the feature to allow for 64-bit address space for the card.

[KingCollins]

16 hours ago, Falconevo said:

The card will likely require above 4G decoding to be enabled in the BIOS, it's doubtful that card will boot without it.

Have a look in your BIOS and enable the feature to allow for 64-bit address space for the card.

I've been around my fair share of mobos and I cannot say I've ever seen/heard of this feature.

Not too sure if I have it.

 

What exactly does this feature enable?

[Falconevo]

22 hours ago, KingCollins said:

I've been around my fair share of mobos and I cannot say I've ever seen/heard of this feature.

Not too sure if I have it.

  

What exactly does this feature enable?

You generally don't find it on consumer grade motherboards unless they are high spec or are 'WS' workstation focused motherboards.

Certain hardware that is from the enterprise sphere, some 10G/40G network cards etc have a requirement for above 4G decoding which allows for a 64-bit base address register.  Some cards simply don't work without it being enabled as the card requires 64-bit addressing.   Considering the card you have also supports SRV-IO, I doubt it would work without 4G decoding.

 

I've seen it in BIOS as the following names in the past, so have a look around but its generally not found on consumer grade equipment;

• Large BAR support
• MMIO above 4G
• Memory mapped I/O
• 4G Decoding
• PCI 64bit Resource Handling Above 4G Decoding

It is doubtful you will get this feature on non workstation/datacenter grade motherboards.