On-board ConnectX-3 shows no link with a QSFP-to-SFP+ adapter plus SFP+ optic; Mellanox hybrid cable fixes it
Intel-branded servers witth a built-in ConnectX-3 (MT27500, ConnectX3-A1-WSP-QDR, firmware 2.36.5000, mlx4_en 4.6, kernel 4.19.68) lost link when a QSFP-to-SFP+ adapter with an SFP+ transceiver replaced direct QSFP cabling: ethtool reported Link detected: no and speed Unknown!, port in ETH moe. The poster asked whether such adapters are supported at all.
- Hardware: Mellanox ConnectX-3 MT27500 (Intel OEM)
- Transceivers: QSFP-to-SFP+ adapter, SFP+ transceiver, Mellanox MC2309130-003 hybrid cable
- Form factor: QSFP+, SFP+
Symptoms / messages:
Link detected: no
Speed: Unknown!
Also available in: English
العربية
Deutsch
Español
Français
हिन्दी
Bahasa Indonesia
Italiano
日本語
한국어
Nederlands
Polski
Português
Русский
Türkçe
Tiếng Việt
简体中文
Comments 2
Replacing adapteer plus optic with a Mellanox MC2309130-003 QSFP-to-SFP+ hybrid cable brought the link up; a subsequent trhoughput problem (0.9-2.3 Gbps) was cured by disabling SR-IOV (single VF), giving over 9 Gbps.
Check the ConnectX-3 firmware release notes for supported cables and update to 2.42.5000 (not available from the Intel OEM download page).