Q about i350 PCIe cards

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

GaryD9

New Member
Feb 15, 2017
28
7
3
53
Pittsburgh, PA (USA)
This might be a dumb question, but the cost of assuming a wrong answer is a bit high...

There are many different i350 based PCIe cards out there from Dell, Lenovo, etc. Some appear to have a non-PCIe connector, but most are PCIe x4. Often times, if you research specific models, they claim that they work in specific model servers from those same vendors. For example, a Dell 7MJH5 (i350-T2) is listed as being compatible with a Dell PowerEdge R720.

Will these cards work in OTHER machines (assuming they have a PCIe x4 slot and the correct height slot for the included bracket)? Or, are the cards modified to prevent them from using standard intel drivers and/or prevent them from working in non vendor machines... such as a self-built server using a COTS motherboard, processor, etc.

The reason for my paranoia is that I know that HP and Lenovo have done something similar with mini-PCIe wifi and LTE cards.)

Thanks
Gary
 

sthsep

Member
Mar 7, 2016
72
10
8
I use Dell, HP, IBM, Sun branded PCIE cards in all kind of different servers (Dell, HP, Intel, Quanta) and they all work fine. I even ordered a firewall networkadapter which was a custom circuit board from intel and also a network adapter from power8 maschine in an intel x86 server and even that worked.

They may come with a different firmware then the original one and if so you need to use the driver from the vendors homepage (or you crossflash a card). But since this are just simple I350 cards the driver should already be shipped with the intel chipset drivers.

But attention there are also some cards with regular PCIe connector which have a customized implementation of the pcie port. And YES THEY DO NOT WORK. For example the HP FlexibleLOM adapter and maybe other Mezzanine cards.

To sum up nearly all branded cards will work in different servers that are not from the network card vendor. But there also few that will not work. But most of the time they look complete different or got a customized PCB

Also you can simple remove the bracket when it is to big or to small.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GaryD9

dgingeri

New Member
Feb 28, 2017
5
1
3
51
I do know that the Dell R520, R530, R720, R730, R620, and R630 all have a special mezzanine card for their "onboard" NICs that could have either Intel or Broadcom, with either 2X 10Gb and 2X 1Gb or 4X 1Gb ports. So, if you see listings for Dell compatible cards specifically for those Dell servers, then they are likely mezzanine cards, and won't work with other systems due to a unique connector and form factor. Quite often, a server will be ordered with 4X 1Gb ports, and later upgraded to 2X 10Gb and 2X 1Gb, and the IT guys will sell the old card, sometimes even without the company's knowledge.