Flash HP 649281-B21 656089-001 to Mellanox Firmware

[Patrick]

Since these cards seem to be selling for awesome prices: 649281-B21 656089-001 661685-001 HP IB FDR/EN 10/40GB 2P 544QSFP ADAPTER | eBay

I wanted to ask @i386 and others what files you used to flash these particular HP adapters.

Instructions are here Flash OEM (IBM) Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN with stock firmware? but the old firmware links are not working.

 

[T_Minus]

Perfect timing since I just won 2 of these, and likely have more coming!!

 

[i386]

The asian mellanox links still work: http://jp.mellanox.com/page/custom_firmware_table

I think that are the same files that I used to flash the stock firmware.

 

[Marsh]

Someone interest in buying these cards, Please find out from the seller and post the revision of these cards.
I look at the pictures and seller did not post the back side of the cards.
Hopefully these cards are rev A2 or later.

 

[Patrick]

Someone interest in buying these cards, Please find out from the seller and post the revision of these cards.
I look at the pictures and seller did not post the back side of the cards.
Hopefully these cards are rev A2 or later.

The ones I received today are rev A4.

 

[Marsh]

I have about 30 of the HP cards, they are great cards and were under the radar for a long time.
I posted on few threads regarding these inexpensive HP cards.

 

[Marsh]

I have the firmware file on my google drive, just last week, I help other another forum friend to get the firmware.
PM me or use the link from earlier thread.

 

[Patrick]

@Marsh I was able to download from Mellanox Japan.

 

[T_Minus]

Downloaded a bunch from Japan Mellanox site drives arrive next week

 

[Ellwood]

So, I ended up picking one up as well. It's the HP brand as far as I can tell in the PSID, but those instructions... there are a lot of unknowns for me. First question is, since it appears to be working, and is coming up in Windows dev manager as Mellanox, and I can ping www.google.com, do I -need- to reflash this? It's planned for an ESXi server anyway (just have it in the windows machine to do the flashing, as I wasn't sure if it was in IB or Eth mode. Is there additional functionality I'll get by flashing it?

Link to mst status and the flint query: Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

 

[i386]

No, you don't need to crossflash it if it works for you.

Crossflashing will turn the hp card in a stock mellanox card, which uses the stock firmware from mellanox. The stock firmware gets more updates than the hp firmware. These updates contain bugfixes, improve the performance & compatibility and power optimizations.

 

[Ellwood]

Ok, good to know.

Looks like this is the MCX354A-FCBT if I am reading it correctly. I'll go from there.

 

[adgenet]

Sorry to bump an old thread but I just went through this process and it worked great, but I'm having issues with getting my kernel module option to stick and it sometimes defaults to infiniband.
I want to actually disable infiniband support completely.
Do you all think it's possible to flash the ethernet-only version of the firmware to the card on a VPI ethernet/infiniband card?

 

[i386]

I think the connect-x3 vpi and en cards (not the pro version!) use all the same chip, it should be possible.

 

[adgenet]

Update: Either I'm stupid (likely!) or flashing didn't work. It still acted like a VPI card.
Luckily I went to (surprise!) READ THE DOCUMENTATION, and learned that you can use mlxconfig to set the default port config independently of the kernel module.
In my defense, it's only mentioned in a short sentence at the bottom of the KB article (see "MFT"): HowTo Change Port Type in Mellanox ConnectX-3 A... | Mellanox Interconnect Community and more specifically in part d of Getting Started with ConnectX-5 100Gb/s Adapter... | Mellanox Interconnect Community

 

[anotherandrew]

Resurrecting an old thread again, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

I have an HP 592520-B21 (ConnectX-2) which installed fine, the drivers installed fine, I even updated the Flash (with HPE firmware) but I cannot for the life of me get this damned card to actually be recognized. The drivers load (and identify the card), but ibstatus, ibv_devinfo, ifconfig... nothing sees any infiniband (or ethernet) hardware.

How can I flash this card back to stock firmware? I see the Mellanox Japan link but I've no idea what I'm looking for. "Cross-Flash Firmware" doesn't turn up anything.

This is in a Dell C6100 blade running Ubuntu 16.04.5. The ESXi blade seemed to work fine (with the C6100-specific form factor IB card) but there's nothing else in my network for it to talk to.

$ sudo flint -d 4:0.0 q
Image type: FS2
FW Version: 2.9.1530
Device ID: 26428
Description: Node Port1 Port2 Sys image
GUIDs: 0002c90300096df0 0002c90300096df1 0002c90300096df2 0002c90300096df3
MACs: 000000000000 000000000001
VSD:
PSID: HP_0180000009

 

[Jannis Jacobsen]

Resurrecting an old thread again, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

I have an HP 592520-B21 (ConnectX-2) which installed fine, the drivers installed fine, I even updated the Flash (with HPE firmware) but I cannot for the life of me get this damned card to actually be recognized. The drivers load (and identify the card), but ibstatus, ibv_devinfo, ifconfig... nothing sees any infiniband (or ethernet) hardware.

How can I flash this card back to stock firmware? I see the Mellanox Japan link but I've no idea what I'm looking for. "Cross-Flash Firmware" doesn't turn up anything.

This is in a Dell C6100 blade running Ubuntu 16.04.5. The ESXi blade seemed to work fine (with the C6100-specific form factor IB card) but there's nothing else in my network for it to talk to.

$ sudo flint -d 4:0.0 q
Image type: FS2
FW Version: 2.9.1530
Device ID: 26428
Description: Node Port1 Port2 Sys image
GUIDs: 0002c90300096df0 0002c90300096df1 0002c90300096df2 0002c90300096df3
MACs: 000000000000 000000000001
VSD:
PSID: HP_0180000009

https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...ctx-3-en-with-stock-firmware.8689/#post-80356

-j

 

[fohdeesha]

that guide link is quite old, it has you compile an image from sources which are very old at this point. you can use this guide to just flash the newer stock mellanox firmware and be ready to go https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...net-dual-port-qsfp-adapter.20525/#post-198015

EDIT: I see now he's referencing the connect x2, not the connectx3, HP 592520-B21 vs 649281-B21 - so I don't think either of our links are applicable. Didn't even know that card existed to be honest, but I'd imagine you can follow the same guide but just substitute the stock connectx2 vpi firmware

 

[anotherandrew]

Thanks guys! I flashed the stock firmware for the MHQH29B-XTR which is what the Mellanox "HP Reference Guide" pdf says is the Mellanox PN for the 592520-B21. I used the A2 firmware (there's A2 and A1 for XTRs, I just picked one). That didn't change the issue where the Mellanox tools could talk to the card but nothing in Linux could see anything infiniband related.

I then started looking more closely at the kernel drivers; none of the kernel drivers from Mellanox's latest OFED for Ubuntu 16.04 had any matching VIDID for the ConnectX-2 (15b3:673c); I uninstalled OFED and grabbed the last OFED for Ubuntu 16.04 that listed the ConnectX-2 as being supported. This is MLNX_OFED_LINUX-3.4-2.0.0.0-ubuntu16.04-x86_64.tgz. Installed that, rebooted and now I see ib0 and ib1 devices in ifconfig, and ibstatus and other infiniband tools see infiniband devices!

$ ibstatus
Infiniband device 'mlx4_0' port 1 status:
default gid: fe80:0000:0000:0000:0002:c903:0009:6df1
base lid: 0x0
sm lid: 0x0
state: 1: DOWN
phys state: 2: Polling
rate: 10 Gb/sec (4X)
link_layer: InfiniBand

Infiniband device 'mlx4_0' port 2 status:
default gid: fe80:0000:0000:0000:0002:c903:0009:6df2
base lid: 0x0
sm lid: 0x0
state: 1: DOWN
phys state: 2: Polling
rate: 10 Gb/sec (4X)
link_layer: InfiniBand

I started opensm, but unfortunately the ESXi 6.0U3 node and the Ubuntu node don't see each other yet. But this is very promising. Thank you so much for the help guys!

 

[lambda]

Thanks guys! I flashed the stock firmware for the MHQH29B-XTR which is what the Mellanox "HP Reference Guide" pdf says is the Mellanox PN for the 592520-B21. I used the A2 firmware (there's A2 and A1 for XTRs, I just picked one). That didn't change the issue where the Mellanox tools could talk to the card but nothing in Linux could see anything infiniband related.

I then started looking more closely at the kernel drivers; none of the kernel drivers from Mellanox's latest OFED for Ubuntu 16.04 had any matching VIDID for the ConnectX-2 (15b3:673c); I uninstalled OFED and grabbed the last OFED for Ubuntu 16.04 that listed the ConnectX-2 as being supported. This is MLNX_OFED_LINUX-3.4-2.0.0.0-ubuntu16.04-x86_64.tgz. Installed that, rebooted and now I see ib0 and ib1 devices in ifconfig, and ibstatus and other infiniband tools see infiniband devices!

$ ibstatus
Infiniband device 'mlx4_0' port 1 status:
default gid: fe80:0000:0000:0000:0002:c903:0009:6df1
base lid: 0x0
sm lid: 0x0
state: 1: DOWN
phys state: 2: Polling
rate: 10 Gb/sec (4X)
link_layer: InfiniBand

Infiniband device 'mlx4_0' port 2 status:
default gid: fe80:0000:0000:0000:0002:c903:0009:6df2
base lid: 0x0
sm lid: 0x0
state: 1: DOWN
phys state: 2: Polling
rate: 10 Gb/sec (4X)
link_layer: InfiniBand

I started opensm, but unfortunately the ESXi 6.0U3 node and the Ubuntu node don't see each other yet. But this is very promising. Thank you so much for the help guys!

I am glad that you found the right version of MLNX_OFED. In case others may find it useful, here is the support matrix of different versions of MLNX_OFED:

http://www.mellanox.com/page/mlnx_ofed_matrix?mtag=linux_sw_drivers