Intel EXPI9301CT not recognized

[JimmyS]

I thought I would be golden for having finally added a proper NIC to my little FreeNAS rig, namely the Intel EXPI9301CT.
Well... it is not recognized by FreeNAS (9.2.1.6 Release x64) :(

The status LED just blinks green indicating no link, so I know it is powered all right.
I tried with two different cables, with which the integrated Realtek NIC works fine.

Output of ifconfig, I believe the Intel NIC should be named em0 but it is nowhere to be found:

Code:

[root@FreeNAS] ~# ifconfig
re0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
    options=82099<RXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
    ether 14:da:e9:67:fc:1b
    inet 192.168.100.5 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.100.255
    nd6 options=9<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED>
    media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
    status: active
ipfw0: flags=8801<UP,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 65536
    nd6 options=9<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED>
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 16384
    options=600003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
    inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
    inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xa
    inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
bridge0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
    ether 02:b3:4c:ad:3a:00
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    id 00:00:00:00:00:00 priority 32768 hellotime 2 fwddelay 15
    maxage 20 holdcnt 6 proto rstp maxaddr 2000 timeout 1200
    root id 00:00:00:00:00:00 priority 32768 ifcost 0 port 0
    member: epair1a flags=143<LEARNING,DISCOVER,AUTOEDGE,AUTOPTP>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 13 priority 128 path cost 2000
    member: epair0a flags=143<LEARNING,DISCOVER,AUTOEDGE,AUTOPTP>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 12 priority 128 path cost 2000
    member: re0 flags=143<LEARNING,DISCOVER,AUTOEDGE,AUTOPTP>
            ifmaxaddr 0 port 6 priority 128 path cost 20000
epair0a: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
    options=8<VLAN_MTU>
    ether 02:73:8b:00:0c:0a
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: Ethernet 10Gbase-T (10Gbase-T <full-duplex>)
    status: active
epair1a: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
    options=8<VLAN_MTU>
    ether 02:f5:c0:00:0d:0a
    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
    media: Ethernet 10Gbase-T (10Gbase-T <full-duplex>)
    status: active

The motherboard in my setup is Asus e35m1-i deluxe.
Please can anyone lend a hand?

 

[Ericloewe]

That card should just work... Can you confirm it's working on another machine?

 

[cyberjock]

That sounds just like a card that is broken...

 

[JimmyS]

Thanks guys, the card may indeed be DOA. I'll try to find another machine to get confirmation.

 

[gpsguy]

Is a NIC supported in the slot? On some machines the slot might be reserved for a video card. Do a Google search of the forum, etc and see if others have run into the same problem with that motherboard.


Sent from my phone

 

[JimmyS]

Is a NIC supported in the slot? On some machines the slot might be reserved for a video card. Do a Google search of the forum, etc and see if others have run into the same problem with that motherboard.


Sent from my phone

Huh? I never thought of that, I guess I'll need to do some searching - thanks for letting me know about this.

 

[Ericloewe]

Is a NIC supported in the slot? On some machines the slot might be reserved for a video card. Do a Google search of the forum, etc and see if others have run into the same problem with that motherboard.


Sent from my phone

The only ill effect of that would be if another slot got reduced bandwidth because the "reserved" one was in use. Otherwise, PCI-e is PCI-e...

 

[JimmyS]

I just read on another forum that "If you force IGFX, & set the primary video device to IGFX, the board will disable the PCIe slot."
This is exactly what I've done. Setting the option to "auto" should activate the slot. I'll try this tonight when I get home.

I also read someone's report about successfully installing a NIC into the slot. Some others have installed TV tuner cards. So the slot would not seem to be limited to GPUs only.
So, this is starting to look like a user error by yours truly.

EDIT: solved, created a new post to clarify

 

[JimmyS]

Setting primary video device to PCIE is the silver bullet. This is the setting that activates the PCIE slot on the Asus E35M1-I Deluxe, just setting it to auto is not enough. You can still force internal graphics in order to be able to manually define the amount of graphics memory.

After transferring a few dozens of gigabytes back and forth over gigabit network I can say that transfer speeds with the Intel NIC are both a little faster, and more importantly, the speed is more consistent without the sudden drops to 14.4 modem speed observed with the integrated Realtek NIC.

 

[gpsguy]

I was pretty sure that there was something odd about that board, hence my suggestion to try a Google search. I can't easily do your research using my cell phone.

Glad you found the answer.


Sent from my phone

 

[JimmyS]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, gpsguy. There is something odd going on with this board but I like it! :)