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

[itdk92]

For the first time ever, the procedure is not working for me on this X540-T1

I am getting Cannot set EEPROM data: Invalid argument

A closer look reveals that the controller info are slightly different than an regular X540-T1:

Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X540 [8086:1560] (rev 01)
Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit Network Connection [8086:10f6]


Clearly I'm doing smth wrong. Could somebody please help??

 

[itdk92]

To add, these are the only two places I can find “60 15”

What would my commands be? ?

 

[Squuiid]

You should be looking for the SUBSYSTEM ID.
Also, the vendor ID should immediately follow it.
Go back to page one and read the guide again, slowly and methodically

 

[itdk92]

You should be looking for the SUBSYSTEM ID.
Also, the vendor ID should immediately follow it.
Go back to page one and read the guide again, slowly and methodically

I did!

Isn't the subsystem ID -> 0x1560?

 

[Quatrier]

Hi Squuiid and thanks for your work,

I'm trying to install my X540-T1 on Big sur. I already change the EEPROM on Linux for Mojave and it was working great. Should I change it again? Which driver should I use now?

Thanks.

 

[zombiejebus]

Sorry if I am necro-ing an old thread here. Browsing around to see if I can get an older intel X520-DA1 I ran with sierra working again either in a TB3 pci chassis or with VM passthru.

I wanted to avoid altering firmware on my cards; I swapped kit around a lot and wanted dual boot to work.

I used OS-X-Fake-PCI-ID as an installed kext to inject the conversion for the pci subsystem ID to make it work with the drivers. I was aware of the reflashing that people were doing though. This worked perfectly with no firmware flashing involved. I have not re-tried using it with 12 yet though.

 

[dovedescent7]

Wow, so you are saying you were able to get a 10gbe card working on Hackintosh with just a kext??
Is there any reason that this would not work for an X540-T2?

Haven't posted here in years but I'm dying to know more about this.

 

[AppleTomsk]

Fake PCI ID way is very unreliable…

Best solution is still changing sub IDs via Linux and use Apple driver or SmallTree depending on the chipset used.

 

[grad]

Do SmallTree (or anything else) drivers work with Monterey 12.4 ? I have an Intel X540-T2 PCIe card (8086:1528,8086:0001). With Aquantia being broken for nearly 2 months now (since macOS 12.4), many people do not have a choice for 10GbE.

EDIT:
To answer my own question, I tried with a patched version of SmallTreeIntel8259x.kext found elsewhere (originally v3.8.6 from SmallTree for Catalina) and it works. Got an IP and I can connect to LAN and WAN. I haven't tried with 10GbE connection yet, just 1 gigabit.

Since I am using OpenCore, I just copied the kext at EFI/OC/drivers and enabled it in EFI/OC/config.plist . I used ubuntu-16.04.7-desktop-amd64.iso live. My commands were:

sudo ethtool -E ens4f0 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48e value 0x0a sudo ethtool -E ens4f1 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48e value 0x0a

since my PCIe card has two ports and I only needed to change 0001 into 000a for both ports.

EDIT2:
10GbE worked as well, checked with iperf:
Mac2 (Monterey, Intel X540-T2) <-> Linux (Intel X520-DA2): ~9.67Gbps
Mac2 (Monterey, Intel X540-T2) <-> Mac1 (HighSierra, Asus XG-C100C/Aquantia AQC107): ~9.35Gbps

 

[lastmile]

I'm looking for a Silicom PE210G2I40-T X540-T2-based adapter which looks identical to the models that Small Tree sells.

Small Tree also offers a four-port, X540-based card, the P3E10G-4-T. There's currently a 10GBASE-T Lenovo-branded model for sale on eBay but its in Germany and the price is close to $300.

Could the four-port card be used in place of a 10GbE switch with one of the Mac Pro's 1GbE ports connected to a router and the 10GbE ports connected to other Macs and PCs? I know a Mac Pro is not the most power-efficient server but I have several available and might use one at least for archiving (the sharing an Internet connection wouldn't make sense in that case since I'd keep the Mac Pro off most of the time).

 

[TrumanLA]

My ATTO 10GbE to TB works fine with my 2019 MBP, I don't even have to install drivers.
It's literally Plug and Play for at least:

- Mojave
- Catalina
- Big Sur
- Monterey

I bought a Riser to M.2 to use one of my M.2 drives as a PCIe proxy.

> plug PCIe card into x4 Riser (which goes out to an M.2 Drive (I have like 6 ext devices)...
> Plug the out which looks like an M.2 SSD (no chips) to an M.2 to TB3 ...
> see what happens. ... I have about 6 different SFP+ and an SFP28

I got bogged down because they 'generously' sent an x16 assuming it was for an eGPU...
(which doesn't line up with the x4 card).

I should have an x4 & x1 interface here within a day or two
... and let you know if my boneheaded idea works.

The damned eGPU boxes have only gone UP. And if people made them FOR eSFP+ they'd be smaller, cheaper, etc ... but, with ATTO's monopoly ... they're gifted a 300% markup.

All be back

 

[peanutlasko]

Do SmallTree (or anything else) drivers work with Monterey 12.4 ? I have an Intel X540-T2 PCIe card (8086:1528,8086:0001). With Aquantia being broken for nearly 2 months now (since macOS 12.4), many people do not have a choice for 10GbE.

EDIT:
To answer my own question, I tried with a patched version of SmallTreeIntel8259x.kext found elsewhere (originally v3.8.6 from SmallTree for Catalina) and it works. Got an IP and I can connect to LAN and WAN. I haven't tried with 10GbE connection yet, just 1 gigabit.

Since I am using OpenCore, I just copied the kext at EFI/OC/drivers and enabled it in EFI/OC/config.plist . I used ubuntu-16.04.7-desktop-amd64.iso live. My commands were:

sudo ethtool -E ens4f0 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48e value 0x0a sudo ethtool -E ens4f1 magic 0x15288086 offset 0x48e value 0x0a

since my PCIe card has two ports and I only needed to change 0001 into 000a for both ports.

EDIT2:
10GbE worked as well, checked with iperf:
Mac2 (Monterey, Intel X540-T2) <-> Linux (Intel X520-DA2): ~9.67Gbps
Mac2 (Monterey, Intel X540-T2) <-> Mac1 (HighSierra, Asus XG-C100C/Aquantia AQC107): ~9.35Gbps

Can you link where you got the patched Smalltree8259x.kext?

 

[DSM2.Hackintosh]

It’s so easy to patch the nics… why using an outdated kext ?

 

[peanutlasko]

It’s so easy to patch the nics… why using an outdated kext ?

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood... I thought you had to patch the nic AND apply the kext. Is that not the case?

 

[Squuiid]

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood... I thought you had to patch the nic AND apply the kext. Is that not the case?

No. Read the first post. Once the NIC ID is changed you can use unmodified SmallTree driver.

 

[peanutlasko]

No. Read the first post. Once the NIC ID is changed you can use unmodified SmallTree driver.

Thanks for the clarification

 

[peanutlasko]

Well, good news was I was able to reprogram my card successfully to subsystem ID to 000a, however upon boot my MacOS reports a "Volume hash mismatch" and shuts down.

Soon as I remove the NIC, everything works fine again.

The card I got on eBay is a Cisco Intel X540-T2 (link here), which has a slightly different Subsystem ID, but I was still able to follow the directions and change it properly.

 

[csdesigns]

Just want to give a shout out and kudos to Squuiid for providing such an excellent tutorial! This guide worked flawlessly on my ancient X520-2 board.

 

[pnerd]

Quick update. I can confirm on macOS Sonoma 14.0 running on a MacBook Pro M1 and MacBook Air M1 (and iPad Pro 5th gen), that my unpatched Intel X540 card worked with no mods and no driver installs. See the screenshot below. The X520 card that I had previously modified with the 0x0a subsystem ID also continues to work. I don't know when Apple started supporting these cards directly but it's a very nice thing.

However, the Aquantia AQC107 card that previously worked on macOS with no hackery has stopped working. I don't know when and what version of macOS this became unsupported but there is scattered acknowledgment of this in this thread and elsewhere. Since the Aquantia cards run much cooler, I would like to see if it's possible to get it working. Does anyone know if changing the subsystem ID to match an Apple built-in card works? Does ethtool support writing the flash on AQC cards?

 

[gosvamih]

I just bought two x540-t2 rj45 Inspur Electronics to connect hackintosh 13600kf+Z690, with home storage. On
Ventura 13.6.1, the card worked out of the box. in PCI-e x16, only taped PCI-e x1 additional pins on the cards.
Ventura already has the kext com.apple.driverkit-AppleEthernetIXGBE.

I connected the cards with a cat 7 rj45 cable, and got a 10Gbit connection.

 

[taedis555]

@Squuiid I followed the thread and have a draft for what I think is correct. I have an ASUS motherboard with 10G Intel NICs built-in. Below are the photos of all the correct IDs and the offset lines that are candidates for the relevant entries.

It appears that line 0x0260 is the relevant one. Based on the above, this is the draft of the Terminal entries in Ubuntu I've made.

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26b value 0x00

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26b value 0x00

OR if it's the Subsystem ID we want to change, would it be this instead?

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24b value 0x00

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24b value 0x00

Also a bit confused on whether I need to do the extra 0x26b/0x24b line for the 0x00 values or not and why.
Do these command inputs look correct? Thank you for your help and creating an awesome thread.

 

[Squuiid]

@Squuiid I followed the thread and have a draft for what I think is correct. I have an ASUS motherboard with 10G Intel NICs built-in. Below are the photos of all the correct IDs and the offset lines that are candidates for the relevant entries.

View attachment 2315065
View attachment 2315066

It appears that line 0x0260 is the relevant one. Based on the above, this is the draft of the Terminal entries in Ubuntu I've made.

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26b value 0x00

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x15638086 offset 0x26b value 0x00

OR if it's the Subsystem ID we want to change, would it be this instead?

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f0 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24b value 0x00

sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24a value 0x0a
sudo ethtool -E enp226s0f1 magic 0x87121043 offset 0x24b value 0x00

Also a bit confused on whether I need to do the extra 0x26b/0x24b line for the 0x00 values or not and why.
Do these command inputs look correct? Thank you for your help and creating an awesome thread.

It seems like this is no longer required in the latest version of Ventura. See above post.

 

[taedis555]

It seems like this is no longer required in the latest version of Ventura. See above post.

I have the latest Ventura installed and I still get Kernel panic and reboot every time I connect an ethernet cable. Do you think it could be that some of the cards are working out of the box, but since my ports are 10G onboard my motherboard it's not compatible with the native Apple kext?

This is the output I get for the NIC info. See the above post for how it shows up in Mac OS Catalina for which is Device ID, Subsystem ID, Vendor ID, and Subsystem Vendor ID

enp226s0f0 info:
e2:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10G X550T [8086:1563] (rev 01)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Ethernet Controller 10G X550T [1043:8712]

 

[taedis555]

@Squuiid Okay, I have successfully changed the Subsystem ID to 0x000a. I get a good connection speed in Catalina with the change. The system in Ventura still crashes and reboots whenever I plug in an ethernet cable. Do I have to add in the Small Tree driver to my Ventura EFI?

 

[Squuiid]

@Squuiid Okay, I have successfully changed the Subsystem ID to 0x000a. I get a good connection speed in Catalina with the change. The system in Ventura still crashes and reboots whenever I plug in an ethernet cable. Do I have to add in the Small Tree driver to my Ventura EFI?

You’re dealing with a Hackintosh bug, nothing more. As far as I’m concerned they’re a nice ‘experiment’ but they’d never be my daily driver. I’d stick Windows 11 Pro on that ASUS mobo and pick up an old 2018 mini with 10GbE if you really want a Mac 🙂
Sorry, probably not what you want to hear.