Four port 1 Gig NIC

[twodogmike]

I have an L3000 running 11.23, runs fine. Customer wants to replace two existing 4 port fastnet cards with two four port 1 Gig NICs. The question is, have any of you been able to bring up the four port 1 Gig cards and if so, what type card was used. I come to you as a last resort after being told by HP that they never made L class servers. Any help would be appreciated.

[Peter Godron]

Michael,
your first question after nearly 8 years !

Can you please supply the part number of the 4 port 1 Gig NIC you want to install.
Are you worried about compatibility or getting them to actually work (i.e. autoneg etc.) ?
I can assure you HP has made L class servers, I have a few in my computerhall !

[Patrick Wallek]

It sounds as if you got someone new to HP that is not at all familiar with the old server naming convention.

If it helps, you could always tell the person that your machines are older rp5470's (which is true!).

[twodogmike]

Oh, yeah, I know that HP has made L class servers. I've installed 25 or so. As to the model of the card, I have no idea. I'm willing to accept HP product, third party, or something I can build in my basement out of gum wrappers and paper clips. I was looking for anyone who had made the four port 1 Gig NIC work in the L3000. I can't find any evidence that it will or won't.

[twodogmike]

If I can find a proven product, we have the resources here in house to get it set up.

[Peter Godron]

Hi,
I think the only 4 port Gig NIC was AB545A, which is/was not supported in rp5470.

The Gig cards that were/are supported are
A6825A/A6847A/A4929A/A4926A

Perhaps somebody else have got more up-to-date info?

Please also read:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#33 on how to reward any useful answers given to your questions.

[twodogmike]

Yes, we have single port and double port Gig NICs in the L3000s, but the four ports are the issue.

[Torsten.]

Hi,

the card is not on the list of supported servers. IMHO the internal busses are too slow for this card:

http://docs.hp.com/en/AB545-90001/ch01s12.html

(L3000 aka rp5470)

[twodogmike]

This is the answer I expected, but was unable to document. Maybe I was going about it the wrong way. Thanks for your help.

[Torsten.]

Have a look at this list for the supported NICs:

http://docs.hp.com/en/supportmatrixEthernetver2.pdf/supportmatrixEthernetver2.pdf

You may install up to 10 single port cards.

[rick jones]

Some web searching suggests the AB545A is a PCI-X card. Likely as not a PCI-X 1.0 or 133 MHz card. Since noone makes four-function GbE chips, it implies there is a PCI-X to PCI-something bridge chip on the card.

My recollection is getting fuzzy, but I don't think HP has selected more than one dual-port GbE chip - an Intel one driven by the iether driver under HP-UX.

So, if the dual-port, iether driven GbE NIC is supported (or at least works) in an L3000, there is a decent chance that the quad-port card could "work" even though it would not be "supported" Particularly if you or someone can verify that the AB545A is driven by iether on the platforms on which it _is_ supported.

Now, I cannot recall if a PCI-X card is supposed to be able to go into a PCI slot or not. That will require some further web searching on your part. Certainly, you would want a PCI-4X (aka 66 MHz, 64 bit) slot, and a "twin turbo" slot on the L3000 at that. Even then, we are talking a *peak* of 66 MHz * 64 bit pr ~4.2 Gbit/s of raw I/O slot bandwidth. Since PCI does not support "split transactions" I'd be willing to wager that one would be lucky to sustain the slot at more than about 1/2 of peak, which means that you could drive about two ports to "link rate" - in only one direction.

If the intention is to be able to do much more than that, might as well start planning for a server upgrade to something like an rx3600.

[twodogmike]

Thank you all for your help. I have the answers I need, plus some excellent documentation for future use.

[twodogmike]

Again, thank you. I have found a way to used a single port 1 Gig card instead.