From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 30 05:30:06 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 88CEF16A416 for ; Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:30:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd-questions@mawer.org) Received: from mail-ihug.icp-qv1-irony1.iinet.net.au (ihug-mail.icp-qv1-irony1.iinet.net.au [203.59.1.195]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C422243D45 for ; Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:30:03 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from fbsd-questions@mawer.org) Received: from 203-206-173-235.perm.iinet.net.au (HELO [127.0.0.1]) ([203.206.173.235]) by mail-ihug.icp-qv1-irony1.iinet.net.au with ESMTP; 30 Jun 2006 13:26:29 +0800 X-BrightmailFiltered: true X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== X-IronPort-AV: i="4.06,193,1149436800"; d="scan'208"; a="545758086:sNHT96249312" Message-ID: <44A4B603.1070403@mawer.org> Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:26:27 +1000 From: Antony Mawer User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (Windows/20060516) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ted Mittelstaedt References: <000a01c69699$665c1030$3c01a8c0@coolf89ea26645> <002701c6969e$7b4ed180$3c01a8c0@coolf89ea26645> In-Reply-To: <002701c6969e$7b4ed180$3c01a8c0@coolf89ea26645> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: William , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD 6.0 compat with DL320 G4 X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:30:06 -0000 On 23/06/2006 6:24 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > Out of the box the DL 320 G4 ships with a riser card that has 2 pci express > slots. At least that is what they are supposed to be, we haven't tried > them. ... > If you only do the pci express then the adapter you want is the Intel > Pro 1000 PT either the single port or the dual port, and make sure > it is the "server adapter" not the "desktop adapter" (the models carry > the same model number but different descriptions, which is infuriating) We ended up in this same situation, and went down the Intel PCI express NIC path (Intel Pro/1000PT). Be advised that, at this stage, the driver in both 6.0 and 6.1 -RELEASE does not support this card, but support is present in 7-CURRENT. That being said, with the official Intel driver (v6.0.5, not sure if it's released yet), I was able to replace the standard em driver in 6.0, build a new kernel, and bring the server up and survive some pre-deployment load testing without any hiccups. Be aware that while the riser card has two PCI Express slots, one is half-height, and the Intel NICs (at least the one we received) are a full card. The onboard Broadcom NICs weren't worth the PCBs they were printed on in terms of stability -- we were seeing the same hard lockups as Ted and didn't have the luxury of time to spend fiddling with it!! From what I gather from Ted's previous investigations, there's various work-arounds in the Linux driver that work around some shortcomings in the hardware itself... Regards Antony