Comparison: Intel i350-T4 Genuine vs Fake

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blinkenlights

Active Member
May 24, 2019
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As someone that has created something that should have been protected by IP and got it ripped off, I have a problem here on principle. How dare someone make money off MY work. And this is damaging to the companies that have spent the money, manpower, and effort to produce these products. The ripoff artists don't put a fraction of the effort in their fakes, and yet they profit from someone else's idea. This is what IP laws are supposed to prevent so that those that develop and create still have a reason to do so. Otherwise a lot of really smart people will just just not share their ideas and hold back the progress of mankind because who wants to work for free? Not me.
Not to take this thread off-course, but I think you are both right - and it goes to the heart of the real problem with counterfeits. I have also been awarded patents and would be upset if someone tried to rip off the thousands of hours of work I and others put into it. It is not about my money (that train left the station long ago, my employer owns all rights) but protecting the investment and sweat equity.

At the same time, I have to agree with this: "The issue is people trying to sell the none-genuine cards for full retail prices - this is the real fraud" If someone with access to the right dies, jigs, schematics, SMTs, and other tools needed to fake an Intel i350-T4 does so, they would be crazy to list it as anything other than new condition. So for people reading this in the future, take that into consideration when you see a listing for used hardware - the low price you are paying for their highly depreciated used stuff is not worth the pain you are inflicting on the seller when demanding proof of authenticity.
 
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Samir

Post Liker and Deal Hunter Extraordinaire!
Jul 21, 2017
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So for people reading this in the future, take that into consideration when you see a listing for used hardware - the low price you are paying for their highly depreciated used stuff is not worth the pain you are inflicting on the seller when demanding proof of authenticity.
Personally, for me it's a comfort thing. The less comfortable, the more prodding looking for warning flags. If that it ends up being too much for a potential seller (which it has at times), c'est la vie, there is always another. And the same for the seller--if it's not worth answering the questions for the price you have it listed for, you don't have to answer. When something is priced right someone will buy it.
 
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Goossens

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May 2, 2020
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Any thoughts on the risk of Fujitsu i350 cards being counterfeited? I'm looking at the D3035 because of its small form factor, but the clean PCB design doesn't give many clues. The price seems too good to be true, but it's a respectable seller and the counterfeiters seem to focus on Intel-branded cards/designs?
 

blinkenlights

Active Member
May 24, 2019
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Any thoughts on the risk of Fujitsu i350 cards being counterfeited? I'm looking at the D3035 because of its small form factor, but the clean PCB design doesn't give many clues. The price seems too good to be true, but it's a respectable seller and the counterfeiters seem to focus on Intel-branded cards/designs?
Possible, but not probable as I like to say. The Fujitsu card is a good example of what I said earlier: counterfeiters aim high to maximize profit, not scrape the bottom of the barrel. I see the dual-port Fujitsu cards selling for around $20 in single-digit quantities. A counterfeiter would not recoup even a fraction of their costs at that volume, not to mention offset the potential risk if they are caught.

I will offer this caution, though - sometimes the board partner products are not the same as the original reference boards. You might not be able to update using Intel firmware (if you care about that) and there may be differences in certain non-essential silicon. Just something to research on forums like STH.
 

drash

New Member
May 25, 2020
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Hello, I'm new to this forum. And I appreciate all the information available here about OEM Network cards and more specifically the Intel i350t4.

I would like to purchase some CISCO UCSC-PCIE-IRJ45 that I can get for a good price (+-40€), they look legit.
But I have some questions:
  1. Are those cards locked to Cisco hardware, or can they be used in other devices ?
  2. UCSC-PCIE-IRJ45 are based on Intel i350t4 not v2. Is that a big deal?
  3. I would like to use them with a Supermicro X10SL7-F Mainboard running ESXi 6.7. Is that compatible? SR-IOV enabled?
  4. Is this also compatible with generic desktop mainboards with PCIe v2.1 running Windows10?

Sorry if this is 'stupid' questions, I prefer to be sure before purchasing.
Thank you for your help.
 
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Fabrizio

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Jun 5, 2020
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Am looking to convert an unused Ts-140 (Xeon) into a Pfsense box. (For work-from-home use)
The Ts-140 needs a suitable NIC ... and so I ended up here.

i’m thinking about just biting the bullet and going with a true intel card.
Eg , I could pick this up locally...

thoughts?

thx for the great discussion!
 

Fritz

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2015
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Am looking to convert an unused Ts-140 (Xeon) into a Pfsense box. (For work-from-home use)
The Ts-140 needs a suitable NIC ... and so I ended up here.

i’m thinking about just biting the bullet and going with a true intel card.
Eg , I could pick this up locally...

thoughts?

thx for the great discussion!
Can't go wrong with Intel.
 

samster88

New Member
May 18, 2020
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I have 6 Dell I350-T4(4x PCIE 0THGMP and 2x Daughter card R1XFC). 5 of the cards that I bought came with F/W V. 13 and flashed them to the latest version 19.5. In doing so the SR-IOV capability was unlocked on those Dell NICs however its a false positive. It does enable the capability of SR-IOV but there are no available VFs for SR-IOV making SR-IOV essentially useless.

This is just to say, if you want SR-IOV, avoid the Dell version of I350s. I recently purchased a Cisco version and another used retail version, so let's see how they turn out.
 

Magnus

New Member
Apr 23, 2017
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I clearly picked up a fake last year for 10 bucks and its been working perfectly fine but the layout if different in some ways It almost looks like some of the parts are from a genuine one and others dont look the same at all like the real one in the back lol.
imageedit_8_4866427020.jpg
 

justme192

New Member
Jun 17, 2020
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After buying from a top rated plus ebay seller for a not cheap price, I clearly got a fake - thanks to this thread for helping me identify. The delta label wasn't embossed and the TXC oscillator lacked the TXC stamp. How do people pick up good/genuine, but used, quad i350-t4v2's?
 

Magnus

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Apr 23, 2017
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After buying from a top rated plus ebay seller for a not cheap price, I clearly got a fake - thanks to this thread for helping me identify. The delta label wasn't embossed and the TXC oscillator lacked the TXC stamp. How do people pick up good/genuine, but used, quad i350-t4v2's?
Its getting quite hard to find real ones as they aren't made anymore. That said the knock offs aren't all junk since the parts are so cheap they tend to use the real hardware. (some still do cheap out )
Some well indeed die after a few months and others behave just like the original but sadly its anyone's guess which ones well and wont.

Mine is clearly not original but it behaves like one and has been running for quite sometime now.

Run it through a stress test see how it behaves.
 
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Rick in Galveston

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Aug 8, 2020
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Just to add to the mess -- bought a legitimate I350 from Dell at twice 2x the resale market for a real Dell -- 540-BBDV (now 4x the resale market).

Yes, it was legit with the debossed "Delta" chips -- what a piece of PCIe non-conforming crap that turned out to be. Yes, this was a Dell card in a Dell "Precision" workstation (not on the approved list). Come to find out Dell gets sloppy with its PCIe pin usage both on the I350 and others. Do a google search on:

Dell PCIe card tape pins B5 (SMCLK) an B6 (SMDAT)

And you learn why Dell can't make a ubiquitous PCIe (or RAID or ???) card -- no it can't. Sent my beautiful I350 back for a refund. Bought a StarTech version for $1xx which I can max out at the same rates and I'm oh so happy. Model ST4000SPEXI.

Do appreciate all the great effort in this site. Just wanted to point out it doesn't always turn out as planned. Please direct folks to the B5 / B6 fix.
 
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Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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Come to find out Dell gets sloppy with its PCIe pin usage both on the I350 and others. Do a google search on:

Dell PCIe card tape pins B5 (SMCLK) an B6 (SMDAT)
Dell's usage of those pins is compliant with the PCIe spec. However, different manufacturers use different bus addresses for various things and there is no guarantee of cross-vendor compatibility - for example, Supermicro routes the PCIe SMBus through the DIMM sockets for SPD support.

It is not surprising that Dell makes their own cards - for example, any particular generation of PERC controllers will come in internal and external PCIe variants, but also in various form factors for the dedicated slots in a number of different system models. Likewise for your I350 - in addition to add-in-cards, they also use that chipset in various mezzanine boards. Dell has always used enough of most card types for it to be more cost-effective to make them themselves. Before they got that big, they still had a big effect on the market - as just one example, every Turtle Beach Montego sound card had "DP/N xxxxx" (Dell Part Number xxxxx) silkscreened on the PCB, regardless of whether they were in retail boxes or included in Dell systems.

For Dell-specific card firmware, Dell values compatibility with prior generations over matching the latest-and-greatest firmware - they kept the old AMI MegaRAID interface style on PERC cards long after LSI (or the owner-of-the-week) changed styles. They also have to guarantee compatibility with a large number of system and drive models, while "white box" controllers don't. Also, don't forget that if you have a Dell drive, you can update to the latest Dell firmware even if you're not running it in a Dell system (though that takes a little extra work). If you have one of those SanDisk "40,000-hour death" drives from some other OEM, can you get firmware for it?
 
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Rick in Galveston

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Aug 8, 2020
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Dell's usage of those pins is compliant with the PCIe spec. However, different manufacturers use different bus addresses for various things and there is no guarantee of cross-vendor compatibility - for example, Supermicro routes the PCIe SMBus through the DIMM sockets for SPD support.
If this usage is compliant then the target machine's implementation of the spec isn't. In this case it was a Dell Precision 3431 -- new as can be -- that wouldn't take a current Dell card without some scotch tape over those pins. Dell doesn't list its workstations as compatible with server NICs but I wouldn't expect them to test / certify that usage. I would expect PCIe to be PCIe for both the Dell card and the Dell PC or, at a minimum, a disclaimer of the pin usage issue since it seems to be of concern. Compliance is in the eye of the beholder or so it seems.
 

socra

Member
Feb 4, 2011
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So very thankful for this thread..!
Managed to buy a card from an EU seller seems legit..embossed chips, TXC logo,wide coolsink,hologram logo checked out would never had noticed this if it wasn't for this thread.

WhatsApp Image 2020-09-12 at 18.22.24.jpeg
2020-09-12 18_25_28-WhatsApp Image 2020-09-12 at 18.22.32.jpg
 

Magnus

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Apr 23, 2017
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So very thankful for this thread..!
Managed to buy a card from an EU seller seems legit..embossed chips, TXC logo,wide coolsink,hologram logo checked out would never had noticed this if it wasn't for this thread.

View attachment 15713
View attachment 15714
Does look legit :)

Although considering the parts now are so cheap even most of the knock offs are up to spec and capable of doing the job.

For once we benefit by progress rather then get burnt by it.
 

socra

Member
Feb 4, 2011
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Does look legit :)

Although considering the parts now are so cheap even most of the knock offs are up to spec and capable of doing the job.

For once we benefit by progress rather then get burnt by it.
Could be but don't think so. The guy had other stuff for sale such as Cisco SFP modules and StackWise Cables in Cisco packaging so probably someone who has access to left-over stuff in a datacenter.
 

Magnus

New Member
Apr 23, 2017
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Could be but don't think so. The guy had other stuff for sale such as Cisco SFP modules and StackWise Cables in Cisco packaging so probably someone who has access to left-over stuff in a datacenter.
Real or fake as long as it does the job as expected and last that's all that counts in the end
 
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creidhne

New Member
Apr 11, 2020
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Is there a definitive list to which Dell card part numbers don't support SR-IOV?
And second question, what are the physical differences between T4 and T4V2 cards if I only have photo of the top side with no sticker indicating version present on that side?