June 28, 200719 yr Author nobody? I don't want to spend the money on one if it's not going to work. The reason I'm asking is with micro-atx boards like mine, there are only 2 PCI slots and the board doesn't have on-board gigabit, so i'm using one PCI for the NIC. I'd like to move that to the PCI-e slot if possible so I could add another Promise card Thanks folks!
June 28, 200719 yr Like you, many of us might like one of these PCIe-X1 cards, but no one wants to be the first, especially when they cost this much. You are the bleeding edge here, if you decide to try one. I did a little research and it appears to use the base Linux Intel PRO family driver 'e1000', which is supported already, so your chances seem pretty good. Current version is e1000-7.5.5, not sure which version unRAID has. They seem hard to find. They are not on Newegg, my preferred vendor. I found it on buy.com for $49, and a server version for $92. I then checked Newegg for any PCIe-X1 based gigabit adapters, and found 2. The D-Link DGE-560T is $52, but only has 3 reviews and they aren't very good, only one successful after much configuration, which would be even more difficult in unRAID. The Rosewill RC-401 is $23, rates well with 9 of 10 happy users, so seems like a great buy. Unfortunately, I believe it needs the 'et131x' (recently patched for kernel 2.6.20) for the Agere 1310 chipset, probably not yet supported in unRAID, and seems as yet little used/tested. Certainly, Rosewill does not have near the respect or userbase as Intel. Ideally, wouldn't you want your disk controller on a PCI Express bus and off the PCI bus? The PCIe-X1 seems clearly superior to the PCI shared bus. I realize there are very few compatible cards for it yet, but they must be coming. At the prices above, you might also think about a motherboard upgrade, with onboard gigabit. I don't know your whole situation, so feel free to ignore my comments.
June 28, 200719 yr Author yeah, TigerDirect also has them for $49, where I saw it. I'm just starting in this setup, and the MB I got works great with the only downside being the lack of onboard gigabit, but the price was right in my current setup/case, i'm fine the way I am due to many onboard SATA ports, but I love the individual drive access lights offered by the SATA cards for external drives in removable trays and when I outgrow what I have, it would be nice just to be able to move the whole shebang to a new case and keep going, with the new case being the only expense (plus more drives of course). I was thinking they should work because they are based on the Intel 1000 Pro and, I think, are supposed to offer full PCI driver compatibility.
June 28, 200719 yr ... but the price was right ... Agreed! That's my most important deciding factor, in equipment buying decisions. I too would love to have the removable trays with indicator lights, warning sounds, locks, and fans, but cannot justify them currently.
June 28, 200719 yr ... but the price was right ... Agreed! That's my most important deciding factor, in equipment buying decisions. I too would love to have the removable trays with indicator lights, warning sounds, locks, and fans, but cannot justify them currently. As long as you consider the true total cost when making decisions, I agree. For example, the low cost mobo needs to be adjusted to include the price of the add-on card. You also need to add in your time (valued however you see fit) expended to ask the question, get the answer, go buy the card, install it, deal with any additional implementation issues, etc. Of course, a lot of the time I spend in this area is for fun or relaxation, so it isn't like I am placing a pricetag on every minute of the day. Bill
June 28, 200719 yr "as you have stopped working for us, please turn in you keycard, the carkeys and move out of the company appartment" usually start the timetracking again :-) /Rene
June 28, 200719 yr Author $50 isn't bad, though more than double a PCI version of the same card. I may order one to try and see if it works. If not, I'm sure I'll find SOME machine to put it in at some point. I'll let everyone know if it works and if I notice any difference between that and the PCI version as far as speed goes. In my setup, most likely not, but you never know.
August 23, 200718 yr Author Ok, I finally got around to trying this. No errors during boot, but it wasn't pingable. Below is the relavent, i think, section of the syslog. I can post the whole thing if you wish. This is on the same network cable as always, the only thing I did was remove the PCI Intel Pro 1000 and put the PCI-e x1 in and reboot. Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1 Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/route add -net 127.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 lo Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/ifconfig eth0 192.168.10.3 broadcast 192.168.10.255 netmask 255.255.255.0 Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA logger: /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1: /sbin/route add default gw 192.168.10.254 metric 1 Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA ifplugd(eth0)[945]: ifplugd 0.28 initializing. Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA ifplugd(eth0)[945]: Using interface eth0/00:1B:21:02:86:A6 with driver <e1000> (version: 7.4.27-NAPI) Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA ifplugd(eth0)[945]: Using detection mode: SIOCETHTOOL Aug 23 17:13:07 MediaSRVA ifplugd(eth0)[945]: Initialization complete, link beat not detected. I'm sure the "link beat not detected" is the issue, but not sure what causes it. Anyway, that's my report
August 23, 200718 yr Perhaps try a different network cable, or a different port on your router. It is possible that the fault was not the network interface on the motherboard, or, perhaps a nearby lightning strike induced enough voltage to zap both ends of the cable (the port on the router AND the port on the motherboard, and they're both bad) That class of failure happened to me once. Lightning took out a printer AND the printer port on the d-link router I was using at the time. I ended up having to replace both even though the other LAN ports on the router worked fine. Of course, this is assuming the network card you plugged in is supported by the unRaid release you are running. Since it seems to have configured it successfully in your log excerpt, odds are it is.
August 23, 200718 yr Author cable and ports are all fine. Pulled the PCI-e card, put the PCI card back in (same cable, same port, etc) and it works fine. It's a Intel Pro1000. only difference is it's the PCI-e version. I was hoping to free up the other PCI slot for another promise card in the future
August 26, 200718 yr Author http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2276643&Sku=I69-6020 I did see in a review (that I missed earlier) that the linux drivers haven't been made to work with this card yet at GB speed. NOW I see it hehehe Due to a bug in the hardware of this card it doesn't work with Linux. The card does works at 100mb/s speed but when put to gigabit speeds it gets TX Unit Hang messages. Further information can be found at http://e1000.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Issues . The drivers haven't be able to work around the issue yet, its been over a year. Just as a side note, I don't know the quality of card in windows as I don't run windows. Uses the Intel 82572GI chipset
August 27, 200718 yr There appear to be several mistakes on that TigerDirect page. The correct chipset is Intel 82572EI, reported correctly in one place and slightly wrong in another place. And the review mentioned above may be mistaken. The bug that he mentions actually refers to the 82573 chipset, and I could not find a reference to 82572 associated with this bug. Maybe it is, but they seem to be rather specific as to what chipsets are affected. If this *was* the problem, then there should be a 'Tx Unit Hang' listed in the syslog when this card was tried and failed. There was a report somewhere that a version of the e1000 driver was missing (someone forgot) the ID for the 82572 chipset, but that (I think) should have been corrected by the 2.6.22.1 kernel release. Check that the version of e1000 is the very latest, e1000 v7.6.5 I think. If it still doesn't work, then a future one should, they must be still working on it.
August 29, 200718 yr Interestingly, I found this in another user's syslog: Intel® PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.4.27-NAPI e1000: 0000:00:19.0: e1000_probe: (PCI Express:2.5Gb/s:Width x1) 00:1b:fc:62:7c:bc e1000: eth0: e1000_probe: Intel® PRO/1000 Network Connection He has an ASUS P5B-VM DO motherboard, with an Intel PRO/1000 chipset (Intel 82566DM) that is a PCI Express-based onboard chipset. That 2.5Gb/s is definitely PCI Express speed, almost twice as fast as PCI speed. This is using the e1000 driver from the unRAID 4.0 version. So support for PCI Express is definitely there.
September 21, 200718 yr Author got another PC in, with windows xp pro on it. I'm going to try this card on that PC to see if it's something with the card. hope not, as it's an OEM purchase and not returnable especially after all this time.
October 27, 200718 yr The PCI-Express Intel Pro/1000 PT <http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/pro1000pt_desktop_adapter.htm> definitely works. I tested this NIC on an Intel D945GCCR motherboard with unRAID 4.2.1. No issues. PS. I tried this card with an Ethernet 100 Mbits router, so I'm not yet sure about Gigabit.
November 5, 200718 yr Well as a update I have this card coming this week : http://www.ebuyer.com/product/112344/show_product_specifications It will be running under unraid 4.2.1 .. so heres hoping it works at gig speeds
November 9, 200718 yr ok I have the new pci-e cards installed.. it works but its I'm not sure much speed I should be getting out of it.. Anyone know what I can check on a pc or my unraid ? Cheers Matt
November 9, 200718 yr ok I have the new pci-e cards installed.. it works but its I'm not sure much speed I should be getting out of it.. Anyone know what I can check on a pc or my unraid ? Cheers Matt Try transferring a large file (like a 4GB DVD) to/from the Unraid. Takes about four minutes for me. Bill
November 10, 200718 yr ahh ok.. well it looks about that ... about 25 mins for 30 gig I am doing.. but looking at the network usage in task manager it does fluctuate wildly from 5% to 25% it seems... I'll try copying back in a while as well... I guess it works then ok.. and this is on unraid 4.2.1 with the Pci express intel network card
November 10, 200718 yr ahh ok.. well it looks about that ... about 25 mins for 30 gig I am doing.. but looking at the network usage in task manager it does fluctuate wildly from 5% to 25% it seems... I'll try copying back in a while as well... I guess it works then ok.. and this is on unraid 4.2.1 with the Pci express intel network card I get the same network utilization - frustrating, since under 100Mb I was getting ~75%, but while GigE is theoretically 10X the speed of 100Mb, in reality it is no where near that plus the Unraid itself begins to be a restriction. Bill
November 11, 200718 yr ok.. at least its not just me But I'm happy it all works... All I need is a NFS server built into the kernel and I'll be a happy man.... Thanks for the help Matt
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