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Are R610 and I350 NIC compatible?
Hi Guys,
Can any one confirm..... Is the R610 (latest firmware) incompatible with the Intel I350-T2 dual Gigabit network adapter.
I've purchase an I350-T2 PCI-E card and installed it into one of our R610's.... now during boot-up (just after iDrac IP display) a warning message appears:
Warning: Power required exceeds PSU Wattage. Check PSU and system config...
Warning: Performance degraded. CPU and Memory set to minimum frequencies to meet PSU wattage.
The server then reboots automatically with the minimum cpu clock of 1.6ghz
When I take the i350-T2 nic card out, the server boots normally, at the correct CPU clock.
Now, I recon the warning about PSU wattage is misleading, The power stats with iDrac report that power consumption is well within PSU limitations.
I'm pretty sure this I350-T2 is InCompatible. Can any one provide the technical reason as to why?
Many Thanks.
Alex.
Alex B
10 Posts
1
October 14th, 2012 04:00
Hi guys, we did get the Intel i350 cards working. It turned out that BIOS is programmed to inspect the installed components (ram + cpus + hdds + pci cards etc) and calculate the POTENTIAL maximum wattage.... in our case, with all ram slots full, the BIOS calculates that the entire system could POTENTIALLY draw 504watts. This exceeds the smart-psu's rating of 502watts, hence the original error message is "by-design". We removed 4 ram modules.from our 4x r610s... now the Intel cards work just fine.
DELL-Geoff P
990 Posts
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September 21st, 2012 07:00
Good morning, Alex.
Make sure the bios and iDRAC firmware are both updated to the most current level. This should remove the PSU Wattage errors you are receiving during POST. Once its updated, then reinsert the Intel card in Slot 1 and restart the server. Please advise the results.
Bios update page: http://dell.to/OM9syV
iDRAC update page: http://dell.to/PGRIHx
Regards,
Alex B
10 Posts
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September 23rd, 2012 17:00
Hi Geoff,
Thank you for your response.
I have updated the BIOS (6.3.0) and iDRAC (1.90), then I powered down the server by removing the power cords... but the PSU wattage error still appeared.
I then reset iDRAC to factor defaults, but PSU wattage error still appeared....
Is there a known issue with this NIC card and poweredge servers?
Alex.
Alex B
10 Posts
0
September 23rd, 2012 21:00
FYI : I've just installed a I350-T2 network card into a PowerEdge 1950.... and the server booted up without issue. I'm using XenServer 6.0.2 on that PE 1950 and had no trouble configuring the I350-T2.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to why the I350-T2 NIC causes our R610's to flip-out?
Alex.
NAC Mike
2 Posts
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October 12th, 2012 12:00
Did you get this resolved? I have R610 servers and planned on getting the I350 NICs.
pcmeiners
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4 Operator
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1.8K Posts
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October 12th, 2012 13:00
Can't see the power supply not handling the card, stating it is 4-5 watts typical ( not much power use ). I would reseat the card, (take the card out, power to bios, shut down, insert card). Then I would call Intel directly if you do not get an answer here, or from a direct call to Dell, Intel has some phenomenal techs on staff. The card has advanced power management, I would not be surprised if it is a bit too advanced.
NAC Mike
2 Posts
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October 15th, 2012 10:00
Thanks, I'm in the same boat with all RAM slots full. How do I calculate if adding this NIC will put me over? Do you have dual PS? Are you using all 6 drives?
Alex B
10 Posts
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October 15th, 2012 15:00
Hi NAC Mike,
I don't know how the R610 calculates the potential maximum power consumption... The following document says that it is indeed possible to run full slots, 6x hdds, 2x cpus and 2x PCIE NIC cards.... but I found out that this is NOT the case.
www.dell.com/.../Dell%20PowerEdge_R610_717W_Energy_Star_Data_Sheet_new.pdf
I was running 2x Energy SMART PSUs. 2 CPUs. 2 HDDs, 1 PCIE NIC, and 12 8GB RAM modules.... I had to remove 4 RAM modules (from each server) to get it to boot. At the moment, our company cannot approve any spend for upgrading to a higher spec PSU... so we have 16x 8GB RAM modules wasted.