MP 1,1-5,1 Modify retail Intel 10GbE NICs to use Small Tree macOS Drivers

[Squuiid]

I have a MacPro 5,1, 2010.

10.14 Mojave is the end of the road for this machine.

But for its last hurrah I wanted to speed up access to my Synology DS3612xs NAS with 10G link, so after researching ended up picking up old stock new Solarflare SFN5161T Dual port 10BASE-T NIC for just under $70. I've could have gotten older card for around $30, but I decided to splurge.

I am trying to do piece 10G on an experimenting budget with mostly used server parts on eBay. The only "new" items are the switch and SFP+ to RJ45 module,

Drivers downloaded and installed without a hitch from the vendor.

Right now running on a Gigagbit network, waiting for MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+IN to arrive.

Exciting times!

DeltaE, this is in no way relevant to this thread.
Please create a new post to share your thoughts on your Solarflare card.
Thanks.

 

[pnerd]

@pnerd Would you be willing to share that driver package? It doesn't seem to be listed on the small tree website anymore and I can't find it anywhere else

Looks like Smalltree finally posted some Catalina drivers, version 3.8.6. I haven't tested them since I'm using an Aquantia card now, which doesn't require any drivers. But would like to know if these work so please chime in. FYI, I think Smalltree might have put the driver behind an account.

10 Gigabit Ethernet Driver Download Page - Small Tree

To access Driver Downloads, please sign in to your Small Tree user account or create a new user. If you are require any additional support our team is standing by and ready to assist you with your Small Tree Hardware. Username Password Remember me Register | Lost your password?

small-tree.com

 

[DeltaE]

DeltaE, this is in no way relevant to this thread.
Please create a new post to share your thoughts on your Solarflare card.
Thanks.

No problem, but I thought it would add to the discussion - I was in the position of going 10GB on my MacPro 5,1 and steps in needed to get x520DA to work were quite involved - re-flashing bios to use SmallTree drivers, then the limited life of an old computer with no Catalina support from Apple. So I thought my solution of SolarFlare card would add simplicity for someone who is just trying to get their feet wet on a cheap as there are quite a few pulls of SolarFlare NICs on eBay and drivers were still available on vendors site. Save yourself a headache in this particular situation. But if you like a challenge and have a X520DA laying around, by all means.

The Best,

 

[walterfilms]

Hello,

I just bought this very same motherboard Designare 10G with intel 550x T2, I tried to modify with ethtool on live ubuntu 20.04 usb key, but i have the same problem mentioned earlier. I can't modify the hex, it just doesn't save. Has anyone found a solution or workaround ?

Thanks and have a nice day,

 

[rippiedoos]

I used CentOS 7 to do patch my X520-SR1. It uses ethtool 4.8, which worked like a charm. Mine had the BIOS already disabled so no need to disable that.

Hello,

I just bought this very same motherboard Designare 10G with intel 550x T2, I tried to modify with ethtool on live ubuntu 20.04 usb key, but i have the same problem mentioned earlier. I can't modify the hex, it just doesn't save. Has anyone found a solution or workaround ?

Thanks and have a nice day,

As stated, I used CentOS 7 to do the patching, worked like a charm. I put the card into a separate PC (Dell R210 in my case) and patched the card there and put it back into my MacPro.

 

[Squuiid]

Hello,

I just bought this very same motherboard Designare 10G with intel 550x T2, I tried to modify with ethtool on live ubuntu 20.04 usb key, but i have the same problem mentioned earlier. I can't modify the hex, it just doesn't save. Has anyone found a solution or workaround ?

Thanks and have a nice day,

You must use the version of Ubuntu that I stated in the guide.
Newer versions of ethtool don’t work.

 

[Squuiid]

Absolutely appreciate you coming back on your own research. I have a X550-T2 in an X299X Designare-10G which I simply couldn't seem to hex edit according to the first post. Ethtool didn't write any data, regardless of no errors in the command, and me checking against all options given in this thread. It wouldn't change the hex.

I then tried edgerider's method of using Sonnet's 10G X550 drivers for macOS, both versions (7.1 and 7.2) didn't do anything for me, with or without Smalltree installed.

In the end I found another solution on a related forum for Mojave: 3.5.0 SmallTree FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_Intel_GbX.kext written for the X550. This would probably work best in Clover / Hackintoshes.

It's advisable to put SmalltreeXX.kext in "10.14", and the rest in "Others", as there seems to be a kext loading sequence, and this makes sure the right order is maintained.

Code for Intel_GbX:

    <dict>
        <key>Intel GbX</key>
        <dict>
            <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
            <string>org.rehabman.driver.FakePCIID</string>
            <key>FakeProperties</key>
            <dict>
                <key>RM,subsystem-id</key>
                <data>
                CgAAAA==
                </data>
            </dict>
            <key>IOClass</key>
            <string>FakePCIID</string>
            <key>IOMatchCategory</key>
            <string>FakePCIID</string>
            <key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>
            <string>0x10c68086 0x10c78086 0x10c88086 0x10ec8086 0x10d88086 0x10fb8086 0x10f18086 0x151c8086 0x150b8086 0x15288086 0x10fc8086 0x15608086 0x15638086</string>
            <key>IOProviderClass</key>
            <string>IOPCIDevice</string>
        </dict>
    </dict>

Newer version of ethtool doesn’t write. You need to use the same version of Ubuntu I mentioned in the guide.

 

[Squuiid]

All, I’ve updated the guide. Sorry for not having made it more clear initially. I too encountered the issue at a later date.
Ethtool in Ubuntu 18.04 or greater doesn’t work. It won’t write to the card.
You must use Ubuntu 16.04 or earlier to make this work.

 

[mastercheif91]

All, I’ve updated the guide. Sorry for not having made it more clear initially. I too encountered the issue at a later date.
Ethtool in Ubuntu 18.04 or greater doesn’t work. It won’t write to the card.
You must use Ubuntu 16.04 or earlier to make this work.

Chiming-in to say thank you for the great guide!

I was able to grab two dell branded X540-T2 with dual nic for $44 each on eBay, get them flashed with Ubuntu 16.04, and installed in my two hackintoshes without much drama!

My subsystem values matched alexanderdi's on the first page, so I'm going to repeat here for reference:

------
ifconfig

(should have two very similar entries with es-whatever or the like; each one represents a port location)

sudo ethtool -E LOCATION1 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48e value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E LOCATION1 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48f value 0x00
sudo ethtool -E LOCATION2 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48e value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E LOCATION2 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48f value 0x00
------

 

[walterfilms]

All, I’ve updated the guide. Sorry for not having made it more clear initially. I too encountered the issue at a later date.
Ethtool in Ubuntu 18.04 or greater doesn’t work. It won’t write to the card.
You must use Ubuntu 16.04 or earlier to make this work.

Hello Squiid,

Just a quick update to let you know that i tried with Ubuntu 16.04 on live USB and centos 7.7 on internal SSD, with no success to change the EEPROM. Maybe something with the Gigabyte designare 10G motherboard?

I'm still investigating. i found this thread, but not sure how to do that though...

I will let you know if i manage to use the magic command...

 

[Squuiid]

Hello Squiid,

Just a quick update to let you know that i tried with Ubuntu 16.04 on live USB and centos 7.7 on internal SSD, with no success to change the EEPROM. Maybe something with the Gigabyte designare 10G motherboard?

I'm still investigating. i found this thread, but not sure how to do that though...

I will let you know if i manage to use the magic command...

I see you used live USB. Might an update to ethtool have taken place? Was it web connected?

 

[walterfilms]

no update had taken place, freshly installed.

ethtool on centos is version 4.8
ethtool on ubuntu 16.04 is version 4.5

when i hit

sudo ethtool -E enp2s0f0 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x242 value 0x0a

and then go back to

sudo ethtool -e enp2s0f0 | less

nothing is changed, nothing is written on the values i wanna change.

 

[walterfilms]

I ended up using this method and it worked.

Thanks a lot anyway for your work.

Absolutely appreciate you coming back on your own research. I have a X550-T2 in an X299X Designare-10G which I simply couldn't seem to hex edit according to the first post. Ethtool didn't write any data, regardless of no errors in the command, and me checking against all options given in this thread. It wouldn't change the hex.

I then tried edgerider's method of using Sonnet's 10G X550 drivers for macOS, both versions (7.1 and 7.2) didn't do anything for me, with or without Smalltree installed.

In the end I found another solution on a related forum for Mojave: 3.5.0 SmallTree FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_Intel_GbX.kext written for the X550. This would probably work best in Clover / Hackintoshes.

It's advisable to put SmalltreeXX.kext in "10.14", and the rest in "Others", as there seems to be a kext loading sequence, and this makes sure the right order is maintained.

Code for Intel_GbX:

    <dict>
        <key>Intel GbX</key>
        <dict>
            <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
            <string>org.rehabman.driver.FakePCIID</string>
            <key>FakeProperties</key>
            <dict>
                <key>RM,subsystem-id</key>
                <data>
                CgAAAA==
                </data>
            </dict>
            <key>IOClass</key>
            <string>FakePCIID</string>
            <key>IOMatchCategory</key>
            <string>FakePCIID</string>
            <key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key>
            <string>0x10c68086 0x10c78086 0x10c88086 0x10ec8086 0x10d88086 0x10fb8086 0x10f18086 0x151c8086 0x150b8086 0x15288086 0x10fc8086 0x15608086 0x15638086</string>
            <key>IOProviderClass</key>
            <string>IOPCIDevice</string>
        </dict>
    </dict>

 

[rippiedoos]

I'm having issues with my converted X520-SR1. The SmallTree-driver won't load anymore after installing OpenCore. The SubSystemID is correct but the driver won't load anymore. Kext-signing is disabled. Any pointers? Should I drop the kext in the OpenCore-drivers-section or somewhere else?

 

[rippiedoos]

To follow up on my own question, it turned out that I had to manually load the driver from SmallTree. I don't know if it causes any harm or not, but I moved the driver from /System/Library/Extensions to /Library/Extensions and did a kextcache -i / followed by a kextutil /Library/Extensions/SmallTreeIntel8259x.kext.

Also enabling the firmware in a X520 (with OpenCore) results in the following situations (YMMV):

• UEFI installed in firmware (and enabled): MacPro 4,1/5,1 won't post
• PXE installed and enabled in firmware: MacPro 4,1/5,1 boot's to macOS (10.14.6 in my case), but Windows 10 hangs
• PXE installed but flashdisable: MacPro 4,1/5,1 boot's to macOS AND Windows 10

This is tested with Intel(R) Boot Agent XE v2.4.44 and UEFI x64 10 gigabit driver v7.7.11 from Intel BootUtil 25.2 under macOS 10.14.6 and Windows 10 2004 with OpenCore 0.6.1.

 

[tan-tris]

Hi there,
I've cocked up and need to restore my backup file. Please can someone help me out with the correct command for restoring from the bin file?
Thanks so much!
J

I followed the instructions to backup the rom with 'sudo ethtool -e ethX raw on > ethX.bin' and now I need to recover the backup, but I don't know how. Can someone explain me how to do this.

 

[rippiedoos]

Has anyone been able to run their X520 under Big Sur yet? I read on the hackintosh-forum that Sonnettech also has some rebadged X520-cards and that they do have a Big Sur driver. Only thing to do is change the proper ID’s to the Sonnettech ones. Or are there other ways to use that driver with OpenCore already installed? I don’t think SmallTree will ever post Big Sur drivers...

 

[phomaniac]

I created an account to thank OP for creating this guide. I was able to get my Fujitsu D2755-A11 Dual Port 10Gb SFP+ Intel 82599E = X520-DA2 working.

I am using this card in a Razer Core X connected to a MacMini over thunderbolt 3 running BigSur with 3.8.6 Small Tree i8259x Driver

I hope this info helps others trying this working.

 

[Squuiid]

I created an account to thank OP for creating this guide. I was able to get my Fujitsu D2755-A11 Dual Port 10Gb SFP+ Intel 82599E = X520-DA2 working.

I am using this card in a Razer Core X connected to a MacMini over thunderbolt 3 running BigSur with 3.8.6 Small Tree i8259x Driver

I hope this info helps others trying this working.

Wow, awesome use case. I too have since moved on to a 2018 Mini, with eGPU, but got 10GbE built in option. However, this is a great alternative! Thanks for sharing.

 

[pnerd]

Wow, awesome use case. I too have since moved on to a 2018 Mini, with eGPU, but got 10GbE built in option. However, this is a great alternative! Thanks for sharing.

Fantastic that the Small Tree drivers apparently work on Big Sur.

Has anyone tried these cards with an M1 Mac? Do Intel compiled drivers even work with the built in magic translator?

 

[solidity]

Hello,
Just to give a fast feedback.
I work in a TV station and we just upgraded all our production network to 10GbE to connect to a NAS (we're coming from a SAN with Fiber Channel network).

First, I was "surprised" about the price of the ATTO cards: I think this is very expensive... we bought something like 15 cards and... I was needing more... lol

The reseller told me that with the electronic components shortage lot of industries are facing for the moment, ATTO said that the last stock will probably need some months to be renewed...

So, I bought this card to do some test: https://www.fs.com/de-en/products/75851.html
Price: 136€/st (vat excluded), and fyi the ATTO cards was invoiced something between 500-600€/st (vat excluded)

I followed the informations on this thread and want to thank a lot the author because it worked nicely!

I was able to edit the ROM of this card and it's recognized with the SmallTree driver, on Big Sur!
The tests I made gave the same results than the ATTO card !!!
I used the ethtool with a live CD of the Ubuntu 16.04 as mentionned

Regards

 

[rippiedoos]

Fantastic that the Small Tree drivers apparently work on Big Sur.

Has anyone tried these cards with an M1 Mac? Do Intel compiled drivers even work with the built in magic translator?

I don't think that low-level Intel-code is translated to ARM-instructions. I can even imagine that kernels for Intel and ARM are really different and the ABI (Application Binary Interface) is also different.

 

[AppleTomsk]

Anyone tried it with the X710 Series ?

 

[evilzardoz]

Tried this on two X520s I had. One worked, one... still worked in the Linux box, but wouldn't even be recognised by the Thunderbolt chassis (OWC Mercury Helios).

Still seeing strange performance issues (1.5G one direction, 3G the other) as I did with my SolareFlare 5622 but hoping the network drops/NIC freezes won't be a problem anymore,

One observation: CPU usage with the smalltree drivers is FAR higher - seeing around 150% kernel_task usage in iperf 3Gbit/sec vs. around 40% on the SolarFlare... something to keep in mind.

I'm still using 10GBASE-SR.. will do some testing with the AQC-based Promise NBASE-T adapter I have to see if there's any significant performance differences there. I suspect the OWC Thunderbolt chassis isn't doing the best job either but all the link speeds check out.

 

[nephh]

Hi,

I'm having problems with my two X550-AT2 ports on an Asrock Rack motherboard (X470D4U2-2T): Internet isn't working.

I'm on Big Sur and OpenCore, the Small Tree driver is well detected. I even tried with the Sonnet driver (following this guide), the behavior is the same.

I have the following message: "Ethernet has self assigned IP address and will not be able to connect to the internet". Even when setting the settings manually, the internet doesn't work. I tried the same ethernet cable on my iMac and it works, so it's not coming from my router.

Looks like the Ethernet port doesn't have a MAC address, what could be the source of the problem?

I'm open to all ideas / suggestions. Thanks

---

$ lspci -nn -vvv | grep Ethernet
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10G X550T [8086:1563] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Ethernet Controller 10G X550T [1849:1563]
01:00.1 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10G X550T [8086:1563] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Ethernet Controller 10G X550T [1849:1563]