Anyone have experience with E10G41AT2 10G Base T adapters?

[Zarathustra[H]]

Hey all,

I just saw a couple of these pop up on eBay at a price I was willing to pay so I snapped them up.

I've been on the market for a couple of 10G Base-T adapters for some time now, after my disappointing experience with used brocade adapters and fiber.

They are used server pulls, with 30 days of warranty from one of those eBay IT surplus places. They apparently use Intel's older 82598EB chip. I know the x540 is all the rage now, but those have been ridiculously expensive. Hopefully these will do fine.

The plan is to run a direct link between my Workstation and my Server/NAS using these on a separate subnet. to speed up large file transfers.

So, are these OK, or did I make a mistake?

 

[Aluminum]

Intel 10Gbe is intel 10Gbe, as long as your cat6 cables don't suck and aren't too long.

Dual port FDR/40Gbe cards have been stupid stupid cheap lately, main thing is how far apart the machines will be. QSFP dacs are real cheap, prebuilt fiber cables not too bad and optics still pricey.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Intel 10Gbe is intel 10Gbe, as long as your cat6 cables don't suck and aren't too long.

Dual port FDR/40Gbe cards have been stupid stupid cheap lately, main thing is how far apart the machines will be. QSFP dacs are real cheap, prebuilt fiber cables not too bad and optics still pricey.

So, looks like these use Intel's 82598EB chip which reached EOL in 2013 according to Intel's website.

It's anot a huge deal, as I was planning on using these under Linux where they are autodetected and just work, but I occasionally dual boot to Windows 10, and I can't for the life of me find a Windows 10 driver for this chipset.

You know any tips/tricks to make it work?

Intel's EOL strategy seems like just another dirty trick to make people re-buy stuff that still works...

Looking through intel driver downloads, it looks like drivers exist in the ixe62x64.inf file under the following folders:

- NDIS62 (Win Server 2008 R2 & Win 7)
- NDIS63 (Win Server 2012 and Windows 8)

but NOT under NDIS64 but NOT under the following folders:
- NDIS64 (Win Server 2012 R2 & Win 8.1)
- NDIS65 (Win 10 & Win Server 2016)

I've been trying to figure out a way to try to force install the Win 8 driver in the off chance that it will work, but Windows 10 is very restrictive and just won't let me, like in the old days when you could override it and tell it to use whatever you wanted.

Is there many a way to edit the inf file to make Windows 10 think that it is a compatible driver?

I know full well this might cause a bluescreen if I force it, but I'm willing to give it a try.

 

[grapethegreat]

Old Thread, but just recently bought a Intel 10 Gigabit AT2 Server Adapter E10G41AT2I
I'm running Windows 10 x64.
It requires you to hack your *.inf file to make it work properly.
First open up your Device Manager >>Unknown Ethernet Adapter>>Details>>Device Instance Path
This identifies your Ethernet Adapter, and will help you find what *.inf file you will have to look through and modify to allow Windows 10 to install the driver.

In my Case my device identifies as

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_150B&SUBSYS_A12C8086&REV_01\6&FA55729&0&0008000A

Then I went on Intels website and downloaded an old Zip file with all their eligible drivers.
You will have to looks through each *.inf file. Use common sense to help you find it. In my case the *.inf file I was looking for was located at

Release_27.8\PROXGB\Winx64\NDIS63\ixe62x64.inf

In this file I did a CTRL + F and searched for the first part of my Device instance path. This will vary for you

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_150B&SUBSYS_A12C8086&REV_01

If you find your adapter/Device Instance Path in your *.inf file, you will have to modify it. In your *.inf file there should be a section that says

%Intel% = Intel, NTamd64.6.1, NTamd64.6.1.1, NTamd64.6.3

and

[Intel.NTamd64.6.1.1]

Change all instances of this to:

%Intel% = Intel, NTamd64.7

and

[Intel.NTamd64.7]

Windows 10 now only allows verified drivers, and enforces driver signature. So now you will have disable Driver Signature enforcement. To do this, do the following:
Open a command prompt with elevated privilege's and type in

bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks on

Restart your computer. Then open up Device Manger>>Right click>> Update Driver >> Browse my computer for drivers >> Browse to the folder of your modified *.inf file.
Your driver should be installed. You're not quite done yet. You need to take your computer out of Testmode / Developer mode

Open a command prompt with elevated privilege's and type in

bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks off

Everything should be good and working. Obviously you might still run into compatibility issues, but I don't foresee a reason why if it's compatible with Windows Vista or newer.
I can see this working on other things too. I originally pulled this from an old DJ forum. This would probably work on some reclaimed Chinese GPU's with more modification.

Good Luck everyone

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Old Thread, but just recently bought a Intel 10 Gigabit AT2 Server Adapter E10G41AT2I
I'm running Windows 10 x64.
It requires you to hack your *.inf file to make it work properly.
First open up your Device Manager >>Unknown Ethernet Adapter>>Details>>Device Instance Path
This identifies your Ethernet Adapter, and will help you find what *.inf file you will have to look through and modify to allow Windows 10 to install the driver.

In my Case my device identifies as


Then I went on Intels website and downloaded an old Zip file with all their eligible drivers.
You will have to looks through each *.inf file. Use common sense to help you find it. In my case the *.inf file I was looking for was located at



In this file I did a CTRL + F and searched for the first part of my Device instance path. This will vary for you


If you find your adapter/Device Instance Path in your *.inf file, you will have to modify it. In your *.inf file there should be a section that says



and




Change all instances of this to:


and




Windows 10 now only allows verified drivers, and enforces driver signature. So now you will have disable Driver Signature enforcement. To do this, do the following:
Open a command prompt with elevated privilege's and type in



Restart your computer. Then open up Device Manger>>Right click>> Update Driver >> Browse my computer for drivers >> Browse to the folder of your modified *.inf file.
Your driver should be installed. You're not quite done yet. You need to take your computer out of Testmode / Developer mode

Open a command prompt with elevated privilege's and type in



Everything should be good and working. Obviously you might still run into compatibility issues, but I don't foresee a reason why if it's compatible with Windows Vista or newer.
I can see this working on other things too. I originally pulled this from an old DJ forum. This would probably work on some reclaimed Chinese GPU's with more modification.

Good Luck everyone

If I am not mistaken, these were based on Intel's 82598EB chip, and were - if I recall - one of their earliest 10gig copper NIC's, released like 15-16 years ago now.

I picked up a couple of them as part of my second 10gig experiment, in 2016 (when I started this thread). Unlike the first experiment with Brocade BR1020's, these actually worked!

I still have them, but I have since moved everything on to x520's (or x540's if I wanted copper)

They are decent cards (or at least have been for me) but they are - as you have noticed - old enough that they are no longer supported by Intel, which is probably why you had to do this little trick. Still fully supported natively in the Linux kernel though!

Make sure you have decent airflow over them, as these old 90nm 10gig ethernet chips run hot. They were intended for server chassis with very high airflow. Their 6.5W may not seem like much, but if you have poor airflow that little heatsink will heat up in a hurry. I gave myself a small blister by touching the heatsink once.

Only downside with them is that they are 8x Gen2, so you need a good amount of PCIe lanes to run them. Considering that Gen 2 can support 500GB/s (4Gbit/s) per lane, you'd think just 4 lanes would have been enough to support a 10gig Ethernet adapter, but if you stick these in a slot that is only 4x, they will - in my experience - throw a temper tantrum. When I tested it, they would have perfect 10gig speeds in one direction (can't remember if it was up or down) but terrible unusable speeds in the other direction.