MP All Models Mellanox ConnectX-3 40 GbE using ATTO FastFrame macOS driver

[rolotrealanis]

Does AppleVTD shows in IOReg?
Have you checked (e.g. with a Linux LiveUSB) that the card was working in Ethernet mode, and not in InfiniBand?

AppleVTD does show on IOReg. I haven't tried to see what mode its working on under Linux. I did boot into windows to check if the card was recognized and it was recognized as an ethernet controller. I'll look into how to verify if its in Ethernet mode.

I also saw someone mentioned putting the card in a different PCIe slot. I have it on a x16 gen 3 slot (its the lowest one furthest away from my CPU. Have a GPU in the first slot, second slot is empty and third slot is where I have the card. Maybe I should also try switching it over.

 

[rolotrealanis]

Does AppleVTD shows in IOReg?
Have you checked (e.g. with a Linux LiveUSB) that the card was working in Ethernet mode, and not in InfiniBand?

So I am deep in this rabbit hoel trying to get this card to work on Mac. I've tried so many things, device properties changes in my opencore config. This gets the card to be recognized as a PCI device with all the device id and vendor id information. however I can't get the driver to load. I've tried adding the driver as a a kext with no success.

I absolutely have AppleVTD enabled, I also have SIP completely disabled.

I just updated the NIC's firmware on Linux and still can't get it recognized on Mac OS. Have you tried a newer operating system? or are you still running Ventura?

also, do you happen to know what firmware version your card is running?

 

[rolotrealanis]

In case anyone needs this as a reference. according to this forum

Ethernet Compatibility List for Mac OS

Because of the Broadcom wifi patches needed for Sonoma and Sequoia. The Ethernet drivers get blocked from loading. So you can't get the AppleEthernet kexts loaded while at the same time having functional wifi for continuity features.

In ventura both can work together because you don't need to patch the broadcom wifi cards.

So I either have to downgrade to Ventura, or just not use the 40 gig cards and stick to the 10 gig Aquantia in my motherboard

 

[rolotrealanis]

I can confirm, I just got the mellanox card working on Sequoia by removing the broadcom patches for wifi. Sooo this sucks. If anyone has any ideas on how to get both working together that would be great.

I guess this means that any 40 gig card that is compatible with Mac OS will never work alongside the broadcom wifi patches.

 

[sultanofswing]

I for the life of me cannot get any of my Mellanox cards working on either Ventura or Sonoma.
I am using CX4 cards and have tried my CX5 card.
I am using an AMD system so I do not know if there is something special I need to do.
I have IOMMU enabled in the BIOS, I have disableiomapper=false and disableiomappermapping=true.
Maybe someone can guide me in the right direction as the cards I have should work out of the box.
MCX-4111A-ACAT is the card's I normally use in Windows and Linux.
I have also tried my MCX515A-CCAT with no luck.

I am not using anything Broadcom, this is a X670E system and I have the wifi/bluetooth disabled in the BIOS.
This board uses i226-v for LAN and I am using AppleIGC.kext with no boot arguments needed.

 

[etorix]

I am using an AMD system so I do not know if there is something special I need to do.

AppleVTD does not work on AMD systems, so you cannot use DriverKit. End of (sad) story.

You can use Intel X500 cards using IntelLucy.kext by Mieze. You should be able to use Chelsio T5 and T6 cards by putting the old Catalina kext, which can still be downloaded from Chelsio website, into your OpenCore EFI.

 

[sultanofswing]

AppleVTD does not work on AMD systems, so you cannot use DriverKit. End of (sad) story.

You can use Intel X500 cards using IntelLucy.kext by Mieze. You should be able to use Chelsio T5 and T6 cards by putting the old Catalina kext, which can still be downloaded from Chelsio website, into your OpenCore EFI.

This is the conclusion I have came to because I remember doing a intel hack last year and the cards worked.

 

[sultanofswing]

Well this Chelsio T6225-CR I purchased is turning out to be a bust.
Cannot find a kext download like was stated above.
Card is not even recognized by MacOS, Nothing about it in dmesg and when I install the "package" from Chelsio it says success but the card just doesn't show up at all anywhere.
Another loss for an AMD Hackintosh I guess.

Well I guess I have my answer here.
DriverKit requires the use of an application to load the cxgb System Extension or dext. To load
the application, navigate to the Applications folder and launch the cxgb app.

Not sure what else to do as I have ran the app and the extension never shows up in S/L/E

I booted a linux install and saw the verbose boot sequence say it was updating the cards firmware.

I believe this is the same issue as the Mellanox Card, Requires VT-D on Intel to work.

 

[etorix]

The newer driver for Sequoia is indeed a DEXT, and requires VT-d.
Click on "Older Releases" to find the Catalina driver, which is a KEXT. Its signature has long expired, so I suggest to extract the .kext from the package and place it in your EFI folder so it is loaded by OpenCore "from under" and bypasses macOS checks.

 

[sultanofswing]

The newer driver for Sequoia is indeed a DEXT, and requires VT-d.
Click on "Older Releases" to find the Catalina driver, which is a KEXT. Its signature has long expired, so I suggest to extract the .kext from the package and place it in your EFI folder so it is loaded by OpenCore "from under" and bypasses macOS checks.
View attachment 2494108

I downloaded the Catalina driver, extracted it with Keka and I do not see a kext file in any of the folders that were extracted.

 

[etorix]

Right, it's a bit cumbersome to get it from the package. The easy way is to let it install, and get the kext from /Library/Extensions.

If you trust me, here it is:

 

[sultanofswing]

Right, it's a bit cumbersome to get it from the package. The easy way is to let it install, and get the kext from /Library/Extensions.

If you trust me, here it is:

I will give this a try, thank you.
I assume I will need to edit the version of the kext to allow opencore to load it?

Edit- Got home and got in installed and card is detected, I have it in a 4x slot but still plenty enough to max out the 25gbps connection as it does when I use RDMA in Windows.

 

[sultanofswing]

I am curious, I have the mellanox kext from I believe the Ventura beta or maybe Sonoma beta.
Shouldn't I be able to use that to get the mellanox card to work just like the chelsio card?

I know I tried it before but opencore was giving me an error loading it so maybe I need to change the allowed macos version in the kext?

 

[etorix]

I don't know of a Mellanox KEXT, only a DEXT. OpenCore cannot handle DriverKit dext.

 

[aurimasniekis]

I recently tried the newest Chelsio drivers on Sequoia with their T62100-SO-CR card and it works fine even has 9000 MTU option inside settings.

 

[adisor19]

I recently tried the newest Chelsio drivers on Sequoia with their T62100-SO-CR card and it works fine even has 9000 MTU option inside settings.

Yeah it's all fine and dandy until Apple decides that kexts are fully deprecated in a future version of macOS and chances are Chelsio won't bother to develop a dext for older hardware. I much rather grab a Mellanox ConnectX-4 based card (for SFP28) or an Intel x520-da2 (or x710-da2 if ya wanna have fun with firmware bugs/updates)since at least the dext is already included straight from Apple. Yes, it sux as it does not offload much of anything to the card but at least it's there straight from Apple without any need for manual driver installation from the manufacturer.

 

[aurimasniekis]

Yeah it's all fine and dandy until Apple decides that kexts are fully deprecated in a future version of macOS and chances are Chelsio won't bother to develop a dext for older hardware. I much rather grab a Mellanox ConnectX-4 based card (for SFP28) or an Intel x520-da2 (or x710-da2 if ya wanna have fun with firmware bugs/updates)since at least the dext is already included straight from Apple. Yes, it sux as it does not offload much of anything to the card but at least it's there straight from Apple without any need for manual driver installation from the manufacturer.

The latest Chelsio stuff is dext and it supports both T6 and T5, dunno what older hardware you talking about and at least I am getting pretty close to maximum speed with them than Apple provided "stripped" drivers where u can't even change MTU...

 

[adisor19]

The latest Chelsio stuff is dext and it supports both T6 and T5, dunno what older hardware you talking about and at least I am getting pretty close to maximum speed with them than Apple provided "stripped" drivers where u can't even change MTU...

I stand corrected. Chelsio T6 series on ebay with SFP28 ports are probably the best card to get at this point as indeed the driver available from the manufacturer is a dext.

 

[jan2ooo]

Thank you for all the information.
Regarding this post it should be possible to cross flash Mellanox 4/5 cards with ATTO firmware and benefit from their driver support. I searched all the internet without success. No User experiences at all. Anyone here? This thead seem more alive. Thank you!