Solved [Solved] NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

I finally got the correct memory for my recently acquired SuperMicro X10SBA-L so I'm keen to get FreeBSD running on it. I already installed the system on an SSD disk and have been booting it on a ThinkPad X220 for the last few weeks, but now I'm trying to get it up and running on the new MB. The first problem was encountering UEFI on boot up for the first time, but I managed to get past that eventually. Thankfully, once I got FreeBSD to start it booted up OK. The first problem I've come across was when I tried to access the internet. It appears that the NICs (it has two) are not recognised. I chose this MB because it had two Intel NICs so I'm surprised they aren't supported.

Any ideas on how to proceed?
 
Re: NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

Any chance you can return the board and order another? SuperMicro has an OS compatibility matrix that will show if it's supported by FreeBSD. Pick a board that's supported, this one isn't. They'll only show compatibility with FreeBSD 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 but if it's supported by those versions it's highly likely it'll also work with 9.3 and 10.0.
 
Re: NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

That igb(4) is a link, but for the short term: as root, kldload if_igb. What version of FreeBSD are you using?
 
Re: NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

SirDice said:
Any chance you can return the board and order another? SuperMicro has an OS compatibility matrix that will show if it's supported by FreeBSD. Pick a board that's supported, this one isn't. They'll only show compatibility with FreeBSD 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2 but if it's supported by those versions it's highly likely it'll also work with 9.3 and 10.0.

I only bought this MB because of a suggestion on this board: https://forums.freebsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=47277#p264180

Returning it is not really an option since I got it from the US, I'm in the UK, and waited two weeks to get it. I really need to get it working somehow. I don't really know what's wrong but at least FreeBSD boots and I can see from dmesg that it recognises the two Intel PRO/1000 NICs and reads their MACs, so it should be just a matter of activating them. Maybe there is something I need to do on the MB itself to enable them. If all else fails I'll try installing Linux.
 
Re: NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

wblock@ said:
That igb(4) is a link, but for the short term: as root, kldload if_igb. What version of FreeBSD are you using?

10.0-RELEASE

From what I can gather the problem may be that my MB uses the Intel i217LM or i210AT chips which are fairly recent and maybe not yet be supported by the current version of igb.

These posts seem to identify my problem

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=64699.0

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=106169

From what I can make out the source for Intel Ethernet drivers is available here:-

http://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/files/e1000e stable/

Whether this would build on FreeBSD I don't know...

Maybe there is a test version of igb I could try...
 
Re: NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

Can you outline how I go about doing that? Remember I'm a newbie and that sounds error prone, but I'll give it a go.
 
Re: NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

I tried FREEBSD-UPDATE but ended up with a system which hung on booting after showing uart3 :(

Fortunately it booted normally on my ThinkPad.

I'll try installing 10.0-STABLE and see how I go...
 
Re: NICs on SuperMicro X10SBA-L not working

I've installed 10.0-STABLE and that is able to use my NIC, so now I have to try and remember what I installed over the last couple of weeks...

Many thanks for your help.
 
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