Solarflare X2522 25G update firmware, and operating temps

[MarcelNL]

I just received the X2522 25G network card but read they leave factory with outdated firmware. From what I see the update tool requires W Server or Linux, and I'm using Daphile which is a Linux distro that is AFAIK locked.

After installing in the 8x PCIe slot the card worked immediately but the temperature rose within 5 or so minutes until it shut down, This 2522 uses 13.2 W versus 10W for the old 8522 that I'm using for over a year now, hovering around a 56'C temperature.

 

Anyone here who has insights on how to update the firmware (guess my best bet is Linux on a stick andd figure out how to work in Linux...) or the operating temperature of the 2522?

 

 

[marfanuk]

Hi Marcel, I'm using an 8522 with Daphile, temps were 55c for mine as yours is too.  I  added a 5v fan running at its slowest speed powered by 5v brick and temp came don to 36c which I'm more than happy with.   I don't know how to update firmware in Linux, but personally I have no need to..

 

[MarcelNL]

Thanks, nice picture, looks good!

 

I want to stay away from fans if I can and it should be possible using heatpipes and a heatsink. I was just pretty surprised the temp went out of bounds so fast on the 2522, I'm going to try the once more with an external USB fan on a LPSU :-) just to audition it.

 

 

[StreamFidelity]

12 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

Anyone here who has insights on how to update the firmware

Take a look to my support page: 😉

Driver and BIOS Setup for Solarflare X2522

Flashing is at your own risk!

[MarcelNL]

Thanks Gabriel, that is indeed a very nice walkthrough of the process of updating

 

I forgot to write more clearly that I neither have any W server Nor regular Linux, Daphile is pretty much standalone as it is. My audio server is the only ATX format computer with PCIe slots, the rest is various laptops

 

So the issue not the firmware upgrade itself so much but getting to the point where get to that step.

Anyone know of an external PCIe via USB adapter so I could abuse any of the laptops lying around as testbed to install Linux? Otherwise I probably have to familiarize myself with Linux and install that on another NVME disk in the audio server for a bit.

 

 

 

Flashing indeed always has a risk, though I never bricked a phone, MoBo or anything else yet (risky to say ;-) )

[MarcelNL]

BTW I guess that removing the heatsink also carries a risk ;-)

 

Needed to find out the surface area for the heatpipe transfer plate 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

It just dawned upon me that the bootable ISO should be the easiest way without any OS install required....so this WAS a clear case of RTFM ...it spells it out on Gabriels support page.

[MarcelNL]

ONE key question, does the firmware upgrade take long? Or do I risk overheating and heat protection shut down during the flash process if I do not cover cooling first?

 

[MarcelNL]

As a test drive I flashed the 8522 firmware (after doing an update to the MoBo BIOS), the whole process takes only a short moment,, done in under 2 minutes beginning to end. SO now I'll reassemble the 2522 and test drive that with an external fan to see if it will stay temp stable.

 

The 8522 heated up to 57'C  or so within minutes, with a small USB fan pointed at it it maxxes out at 30'C now.

 

I just noticed that the 2522 heatsink has even finer spaced fins, so that one is more dependent on forced air cooling than the previous version....I may just do a transplant to see how that works out... 

 

edit; Seemed as if the thermal paste was EOL, that might also add to the fast tem increase of the processor on the 2522.

 

the 2522 is now temp stable @38-ish'C with the fan after 5 min....old thermal paste might well have been the cause (the 2522 came as NOS)

 

[MarcelNL]

well, the good news is that the 2522 is temp stable with the new thermal paste, the bad news is that I cannot find a setting in the Aorus master 570 Bios allowing me to set it for ultra low latency

[marfanuk]

1 hour ago, MarcelNL said:

 

 

edit; Seemed as if the thermal paste was EOL, that might also add to the fast tem increase of the processor on the 2522.

 

the 2522 is now temp stable @38-ish'C with the fan after 5 min....old thermal paste might well have been the cause (the 2522 came as NOS)

 

Are you going to be sticking with a small external fan now?  I found no noticeable difference without the fan, so I'm happy with mine.

[MarcelNL]

9 minutes ago, marfanuk said:

Are you going to be sticking with a small external fan now?  I found no noticeable difference without the fan, so I'm happy with mine.

for now I have to, but this fan is a bit noisy (not a PWM fan so running full speed, it's one of those 'desktop fans for personal use", building a passive solution is not that hard ( I was going to do that for the 8522 anyway)

[MarcelNL]

reading the manual makes me think the settings for the x522 can be adjusted without the BIOS:

 

For latency sensitive applications, the adapter firmware variant should be set with  the sfboot utility to ultra‐low‐latency: # sfboot ‐‐adapter=eth firmware‐variant=ultra‐low‐latency The ultra‐low‐latency firmware variant is being used when the output from ethtool  (above) shows the rx1 and tx1 values. A reboot of the server is required after changes using sfboot.

 

There also is a section on tuning the adapter for low latency, speed, throughput etc...

[MarcelNL]

so the rest of the tale...Not having ANY experience with Linux command line language I struggled with the right syntax...BUT, I succeeded using the sfboot command contained in the bootable ISO.

 

Only took me about 24 attempts to figure out the syntax in various places by trial and error🤫

 

 

 

[MarcelNL]

For now I've put an old CPU fan on a LPSU 5 V so it turns a lot slower and is (almost) silent....

 

I'm loving what I hear, control, acoustics, textures, overtones, coloratura in spades :-)

 

[baconbrain]

On 6/2/2022 at 8:35 PM, MarcelNL said:

so the rest of the tale...Not having ANY experience with Linux command line language I struggled with the right syntax...BUT, I succeeded using the sfboot command contained in the bootable ISO.

Only took me about 24 attempts to figure out the syntax in various places by trial and error

 

I had a similar exercise with my sfn8522 using windows powershell. The syntax is definitely a challenge and the manual (although extensive) is missing some of the parameters to make certain changes. Great that you got it to work! 👍

 

[MarcelNL]

I'm stoked with the result, streaming now sounds seriously good! Well worth the upgrade over the 8522 !

[Acholate]

On 6/3/2022 at 1:35 AM, MarcelNL said:

so the rest of the tale...Not having ANY experience with Linux command line language I struggled with the right syntax...BUT, I succeeded using the sfboot command contained in the bootable ISO.

 

Only took me about 24 attempts to figure out the syntax in various places by trial and error🤫

 

 

 

 

I also don't have latency setting in the bios. I copy your command line and able to change the setting. Thanks!

[Gavin1977]

My current solution.... it is silent, but interested in any other approaches to manage temperatures passively.

 

 

[MarcelNL]

I'm planning to add heatpipes, and connect those to the second 300W heatsink I have lying around from the construction of the passive cooling for the CPU (overkill but I may connect the two heatsinks). (Will be a while as my fan solution on an external linear PSU works quite well).

Biggest hurdle is to find a heat pipe adapter in copper that I need to file down to clear some components on the card around the chip, nothing too difficult (guess I can just use another copper AMD CPU clasp as donor)

 

Meanwhile it MAY help to swap the heatsink from the 8552 card, which has wider spacing between the fins, both are claerly made for forced air flow and not for convection but the one on the old card worked a bit better. Adding new thermal paste also worked wonders for me (my card is likely NOS), initial temps ran off into >80'C in 5 minutes