Chelsio T320 dual SFP+ & 2 transceivers - 32 $

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BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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What. A. Day. I put my new Chelsio in. Windows does DOES not find a driver for it, so you have to use the Unified installer v1.5.13.0 from service.chelsio.com. As soon as I loaded the driver, BAM. Windows 10 BSOD's. Reboot, repeat.

So, I figured I'd format real quickly and load chipset, basic drivers and updates and see if I could get it to load. After multiple clean installs and installation order (chipset, driver, update: driver, update, chipset: etc) without success, I finally tried port 2 on the card, and what do you know, all my issues vanished. Really?? Hours wasted on what might be a bad port?

Anyway, I went ahead and finished my workstation setup without another BSOD, and once all setup I bench marked with the same 40GB file. Pretty much the same results.

So, doesn't seem like there is any advantage to it on a windows machines, at least in my case. Of course the downside is no native driver and more power usage.

On odd thing: windows shows it's link speed at 10.7 Gbps. Not 10, 10.7.

Oh, I did update the firmware to v7.11.0 too.​
Man... I know the feeling about wasting time on computer shit... I was about to go into such a time sink last night when my business manager's Win10 computer all of a sudden couldn't connect to the file server. I just told her "we could spend hours tonight trying to fix this, get frustrated, stay late and be tired... or, we can call it a day, go home, enjoy time with our families and be happy knowing the world won't end when computers stop working." She made a wise choice.

So, can you repeat the BSOD if you use the suspected bad port? Were you using SFP+ optical modules or copper/DAC? If SFP+, I wonder if the transceiver is bad?
 

Craash

Active Member
Apr 7, 2017
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Not only can I repeat it (plus I’m using DAC) but when it put it in my ‘Nix box it caused a kernel panic. I already emailed the vendor, I’ll see what he says. My favorite story of wasted time coming up as soon as I get parked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

HorizonXP

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May 23, 2016
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@HorizonXP,

Forgive me, I'm not sure where we are with your setup. I THINK that we've decided that the NIC doesn't matter. I'm assuming it has an on-board 1GB NIC, if you use it can you at least saturate the link? Solidly? We have alot of things in the 'mix' here and I'm just trying to decide how we can eliminate items that might be throwing a wrench in the works.

It took me awhile to get my FreeNAS sorted out, but I'm pretty happy with it now. One of the things that got me was using my Chelsio in a physical x8 (pcie2.0) port that was wired as a x4. This gave me pretty bad performance. Moving it to a x8 (wired as a x8) fixed it right up.
That's correct, NIC doesn't matter, both FreeNAS and pfSense exhibit similar behaviour/speeds with an Intel X520 or Chelsio N320E. I have not tried the onboard 1GB NIC, but I will shortly.

The x8 vs x4 thing was something I thought about too. The FreeNAS box has 4 x8 slots (SuperMicro X9SCM), but I made sure to plug the NIC into the dedicated PCI 3.0 x8 slot. Still, that could explain the low read speeds from it. Write speeds are bang on though, so not sure what to make of that.

For the pfSense box, the x4x4 bifurcation required to get the Chelsio to work is certainly affecting performance, but the Intel card saw similar numbers at x8, so we're not reaching the limits yet.

What. A. Day. I put my new Chelsio in. Windows does DOES not find a driver for it, so you have to use the Unified installer v1.5.13.0 from service.chelsio.com. As soon as I loaded the driver, BAM. Windows 10 BSOD's. Reboot, repeat.

So, I figured I'd format real quickly and load chipset, basic drivers and updates and see if I could get it to load. After multiple clean installs and installation order (chipset, driver, update: driver, update, chipset: etc) without success, I finally tried port 2 on the card, and what do you know, all my issues vanished. Really?? Hours wasted on what might be a bad port?

Anyway, I went ahead and finished my workstation setup without another BSOD, and once all setup I bench marked with the same 40GB file. Pretty much the same results.

So, doesn't seem like there is any advantage to it on a windows machines, at least in my case. Of course the downside is no native driver and more power usage.

On odd thing: windows shows it's link speed at 10.7 Gbps. Not 10, 10.7.

Oh, I did update the firmware to v7.11.0 too.​

Not only can I repeat it (plus I’m using DAC) but when it put it in my ‘Nix box it caused a kernel panic. I already emailed the vendor, I’ll see what he says. My favorite story of wasted time coming up as soon as I get parked.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I never did try using a different port when I installed it on the Windows 10 machine. I'll stick with the X520 for now, but that could explain the problem I'm having on the other machines. Let me know what the seller says. Might end up having to return these then.
 

foxxiu7

New Member
Dec 26, 2016
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How does Chelsio card compare to Broadcom BCM57810S 10GB Dual Port SFP+ ? I'm looking for good cheap Dual Port card for HyperV 2016 server.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
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SlickNetAaron

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Apr 30, 2016
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How does Chelsio card compare to Broadcom BCM57810S 10GB Dual Port SFP+ ? I'm looking for good cheap Dual Port card for HyperV 2016 server.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Sorry to interject, but I've had nothing but horrible experiences with BCM57810S! Just today I found these are most likely the cause of nasty latency in my vmware environment. Not to mention all the PSOD and other problems with BCMs 1gb products.
 

BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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finally found some time to check the 4 cards i got through this deal. BTW @I_D : your US link does not go to US eBay...

I think all 4 of my Chelsio cards work and the included SFP+ modules worked just fine. I'm getting about 8.9~9.4 Gbps using iperf3 in both directions. I'm using CentOS 7 as OS with the stock kernel driver for this NIC (cxgb3).

However, one thing that was strange, the latest firmware I can find is 7.11.0 from here:

Chelsio Driver Downloads

Yet, the firmware that was already on the card is 7.12.0. I'm seeing this through 'ethtool -i <interface>' on Linux. Anyone else see this? What firmware version did you have? And where did they get this 7.12.0?
 

Craash

Active Member
Apr 7, 2017
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I became weary with the TPC blue screen's I would see with this Chelsio card. So I purchased a MCX311a's for $40 to my door. PCIe3.0 x4. Tiny. Flipping FAST.

Real world 40GB file transfer from a Windows 10 1709 Pro machine to a FreeNAS v11.x machine.



Thread where this card was discussed: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/mellanox-mcx311as-35.17029/

Purchase Link


The seller accepted $25 plus $15 for shipping. So I was $40 to my door. It arrived in 3 days.
 

I_D

Member
Aug 3, 2017
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I became weary with the TPC blue screen's I would see with this Chelsio card. So I purchased a MCX311a's for $40 to my door. PCIe3.0 x4.
It's at least 40 buks shipping to my door in EU, not counting taxes and import bullshit. That'll probably push it 100-150. :(
Great deal for the muricans though, wish I could get some too.
 

AndyO

New Member
Jun 18, 2017
8
0
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67
I became weary with the TPC blue screen's I would see with this Chelsio card. So I purchased a MCX311a's for $40 to my door. PCIe3.0 x4. Tiny. Flipping FAST.

Real world 40GB file transfer from a Windows 10 1709 Pro machine to a FreeNAS v11.x machine.



Thread where this card was discussed: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/mellanox-mcx311as-35.17029/

Purchase Link


The seller accepted $25 plus $15 for shipping. So I was $40 to my door. It arrived in 3 days.
I'm in a similar position. I bought two of the Chelsio T3 cards since they were the ones recommended for FreeNAS. So - the card is working great in my FreeNAS, but the one in my PC throws exceptions every few minutes. I've tried three different versions of the driver, but there's no difference. I'm just convinced I need to give up.

I see the Mellanox cards on eBay for reasonable money, but none of them seem to come with transceivers. What did you end up using? Thanks.

EDIT - will it work with the JDSU plrxpl-sc-s43-42b from my Chelsio card?
 
Last edited:

arglebargle

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Jul 15, 2018
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@AndyO I don't have the same transceiver here to test but Mellanox cards are remarkably forgiving about vendor IDs when it comes to optics and DACs, it will probably work just fine. I haven't met an optic or DAC that wouldn't work in my Mellanox cards anyway.
 

AndyO

New Member
Jun 18, 2017
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@AndyO I don't have the same transceiver here to test but Mellanox cards are remarkably forgiving about vendor IDs when it comes to optics and DACs, it will probably work just fine. I haven't met an optic or DAC that wouldn't work in my Mellanox cards anyway.
Thanks. That's what I've heard, but it turns out that the guy selling the card has actual Mellanox transceivers for under $9, so I'm just going to get one of those and keep the complete Chelsio card and transceivers as a backup for my server.