HP NC522SFP Incompatible with standard SFP+ copper cables

[Steve Skiest]

We have some customers who want to use Panduit SFP+ direct attach cables with HP NC522 10G server adapters. Panduit offers SFF-8431 compliant twinax cables every 0.5m as well as custom bundling which greatly faciltates network deployment. Our customers report the HP NIC will not link up. By reading some of the threads, we realize that the HP firmware only recognizes an HP branded cables. This seems short sighted on HP side since cables will connect from one vendor's equipment to another and nearly all switches will work with compliant cables. Our only recommendation at this time is to advise customer to use non-HP server adapter. Is there contact in HP coporate product division to further address this issue?

[D. J. Koenen]

How did the customer verify that it was the fault of the NC522SFP and not the other end of the cable? The NC522SFP is suppose to be able to work with all DAC twin-ax cables regardless of the manufacturer or security ID. The ProCurve and VC switches, however, do recognize the HP Branded cable's ID and will not link by default for non-HP cables. But in most cases, the customer can over-ride protection and use other vendor cables.

[Cederberg]

There is another issue that we experianced when using the HP NC522SFP card in our new DL380 G6. We had 6 cards installed in diffrent DL380 G6. All nics dropped connection, some cards more than others. HP has recreated the problem in thier own lab so not just our enviroment. Both Vmware and Windows dropped link.

[Steve Skiest]

The cable is able to link 2 switches (Nexus 5000), but between the Nexus 5000 and HP Proliant DL380G6 with HP NC522. So we know the cable is good. Local HP support said HP servers only recognize HP cables.
Other customers have been able to link between HP servers with Intel NIC and Nexus 5000. So that is why we believe it has to do with the firmware of the HP NC522. Do you know if this is the case or it may related to another issue?
We are trying to determine a work around to get the NC522 to link to the Nexus 5000 with a SFF-8431 compliant twinax cables of 2,3,4,5,and 7m.

[Steve Skiest]

I mean NOT able to link up between HP server/NIC and Nexus 5000

[C_Martin]

I have a customer with this same issue, was there ever a resolution that was found?

I am in the same situation but we're using a 2910al with the ProCurve DAC Cable of J9283B and the DAC Cable will link two switches together but it does not work wit hthe NC522SFP.

Thank you,

[Steve Skiest]

Were not able to find resolution with the HP NC522 adapter and our cables. The port seems to be locked to only recognize certain cable vendors and we could not find a work around. The only option was to use another supplier for the server adapter.