Scored Dell H310's eBay. Questions..

[Joseph B]

Found deal for supposedly refurb Dell H310 cards. Ordered two to be used for home lab.

Gonna go with esxi 6.5 if compatible with my setup, if not down to 6.0 update 2.

Anyhow first question, what is the latest and greatest firmware version, from which manufacturer, to cross flash to the cards for best passthrough performance in esxi bare metal?

For a newer Intel C236 server board with ddr4 ECC ram and pci xxpres 3 slots as well as efi bios, do I or should I, tape up the pins on the pci x connectors on H310 cards?

Does ESXI work well with these cards once cross flashed for 24/7 uptime using sata 3 WD drives for storage on passthrough under VM's?

Wondering because I plan on using expenology or maybe another NAS like OS as a VM while running other VMs...

The Dell H310's were cheap with cables and supposedly refurbished from 2016, so I thought what the heck for my new server build...

Hope I didn't make a mistake performance wise or for stability sake going the "cheap" route..

Thank you guys!!

 

[fractal]

I never bothered to tape the pins on mine. I only found one system the cards don't work in without them taped. I suppose I would worry if I really needed a H310 to work in that system. But I don't, so I don't bother. The failure is not subtle. The system won't pass POST with the card installed in a system that doesn't like them.

As for the rest .. just follow the guides and you will be fine. Older firmware, newer version ... I haven't seen any difference.

 

[Terry Kennedy]

The failure is not subtle. The system won't pass POST with the card installed in a system that doesn't like them.

This doesn't always seem to be the case. I have one of those same eBay H310's (refurb with cable), flashed to 9211-8i 20.00.07.00, in a Supermicro X8DTH-iF. With the H310 card installed, no memory is detected in P1_DIMM2A and P2_DIMM2A (HMT31GR7AFR4C-H9 memory from the supported list in P1 DIMM1/2/3A and P2 DIMM1/2/3A). Removing the H310, all memory is detected. Cutting the B5/B6 traces on the H310, all memory is detected and the H310 still works fine.

 

[nthu9280]

This doesn't always seem to be the case. I have one of those same eBay H310's (refurb with cable), flashed to 9211-8i 20.00.07.00, in a Supermicro X8DTH-iF. With the H310 card installed, no memory is detected in P1_DIMM2A and P2_DIMM2A (HMT31GR7AFR4C-H9 memory from the supported list in P1 DIMM1/2/3A and P2 DIMM1/2/3A). Removing the H310, all memory is detected. Cutting the B5/B6 traces on the H310, all memory is detected and the H310 still works fine.

I had similar experience in a HP Z600 workstation. Thought issue with RAM and ran memtest86 without the card and didn't find issues.
This appears to be a known/documented issue.


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