Marvell (Aquantia) 10 Gb Ethernet support thread

[Slice]

21 hours ago, Cyberdevs said:

@Mieze

Hi, how are you doing?

 

I have an onboard Intel AQC113 on my Z690 Aorus Master mainboard and I use this SSDT to activate it, but it won't let my system to go to sleep, is there a way to fix this issue?

SSDT-Aquantia-AQC113C.aml 287 B · 1 download

May be you should add

                    Name (_PRW, Package (0x02)  // _PRW: Power Resources for Wake
                    {
                        0x09, 
                        0x04
                    })

?

[J Lamp]

Anyone else having problems with a AQC107 on 14.5?

 

It worked at first, but the other evening it disconnected in the middle of a session and wouldn't reconnect. A reboot fixed it, but that only worked once.

 

It is working and continues to work 100% rock solid when booting into Windows.

 

Mac system report sees the card correctly. It shows as up and "Connected" in the network preferences, but there are no network lights on the card. It's almost as if it was powered off. In fact, I can see the link lights flashing on the card until 14.5 starts to load, then they turn off.

 

I've tried it with and without the ssdt I have for it. I have deleted and recreated the network prefs for it. The fact that it worked at first in 14.5 is weird. I'm unsure what to try next. Any suggestions?

 

As a test I tried this with my 14.4 backup, the card works fine.

[etorix]

What SSDT? In what system(s)?

Clover or OpenCore? Which quirks?

 

You have not given much information to understand the issue and your setting…

[J Lamp]

Yeah, sorry @etorix, that was meant more as a general query to see if this is 14.5 or just somehow specific to my rig.

 

This is on the x299 build in my signature, smbios is iMac Pro.

 

The SSDT is from KGP's old package, it's more informational, that network card has worked in the past without it. I've tried with and without the SSDT since the card stopped working, no luck.

VT-d is enabled. Even though there is a reserved region in the DMAR table I have never had to use a custom one patch for that, it has always just worked.

I've been using the Find / Replace patch in Clover 5158 ( I was on 5156 and it was working on 14.4, updated Clover to see if it would help, no change.)

Find          0F845003 0000

Replace    660F1F44 0000

The "ForceAquantiaEthernet" quirk is disabled. I've not needed it in the past. I did try this with it enabled, it didn't make any difference.

 

I was going to search the binary to see if I could find 0F845003 0000 to see if the patch had changed, but apparently there's no binary file in the AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion.kext anymore, so I don't even know how that works these days.

 

I was hoping to try loading the older Aquantia kexts from 14.4 from my EFI to see if I could get it working that way on 14.5, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

[Slice]

Updated Sonoma I encountered the problem of DMAR. System hangs. It was resolved by excluding the reserved region from DMAR table. Old Sonoma works fine without this patch.

This is my real story.

 

VT-d problems in macOS

[etorix]

@J Lamp You might be on something about changes in Aquantia support in 14.5 but I don't know where to look.

 

However with working VT-d you have no shortage of fast NICs to use: Intel X500 series, X710 and XXV710, Mellanox ConnectX-3 and above…

[J Lamp]

@Slice, thanks for the link to the DMAR discussion. I've got a feeling that this is where the issue lies after the update. I'm still looking into it.

 

@etorix, I appreciate the alternate card suggestions. I'd rather not spend money on this, but this card has stopped working so many times after updates that it may simply be time to try something else.

 

If either of you or anyone else can clue me in on how to extract the binary from the prebuilt partition I can look into seeing if the patch has changed.

 

What I find interesting is that a AQC107s https://www.sonnettech.com/product/solo10g-pcie-card.html apparently does work (in real macs anyway.) The "s" supposedly stands for security (I don't know what exactly that means in context of the hardware itself.) Macs are supposed to load the firmware on an AQC in a similar fashion to what they did with Broadcom hardware. Maybe the issue is that the card isn't getting the firmware properly?

[Mieze]

@J Lamp The Sonet Solo is whitelisted in the Aquantia driver which makes it an OOB solution but it has a sever thermal issue. I bought one 3 years ago but it didn't survive a single week in my home server where it replaced an ASUS card which used to work flawlessly more than 2 years in the same slot. No need to explain that the card was returned immediately. This was also the reason why I switched to Intel X520-DA1 with fiber optics SFP+modules or DAC cables.

[J Lamp]

Thanks @Mieze, good advice. I wouldn't want to waste any more money on this.

 

After more digging around on my system looking at DMAR and VT-d I'm coming back around to suspecting that the kext patch needs an update.

 

EDIT: I downloaded the installers for 14.5 and 14.4.1 and am currently comparing the binaries for the kext in question.

0F845003 0000 is still in the binary for 14.5. I'll keep looking...

Edited May 25 by J Lamp
Update

[Slice]

9 hours ago, J Lamp said:

 

If either of you or anyone else can clue me in on how to extract the binary from the prebuilt partition I can look into seeing if the patch has changed.

 

 

dyld cache extractor used by OCLP 

[Mieze]

The ASUS card with flashed Apple firmware in my MSI Z490 Gaming Plus, which stopped working after the Update to 14.3.1, now resumed work after I installed the 14.5 update, although I didn't change anything else, except updating OC to version 1.0.0. AppleVTD is enabled and the patch is the same I used with Ventura. Strange, really strange...🤔

Edited May 26 by Mieze

[J Lamp]

On 5/26/2024 at 7:22 PM, Mieze said:

The ASUS card with flashed Apple firmware in my MSI Z490 Gaming Plus, which stopped working after the Update to 14.3.1, now resumed work after I installed the 14.5 update, although I didn't change anything else, except updating OC to version 1.0.0. AppleVTD is enabled and the patch is the same I used with Ventura. Strange, really strange...🤔

Yeah, it is strange. When the card works it's rock solid, when it doesn't it's a PITA.

 

I have had the AQC107 drop out while saturating the link on my onboard I219-v and not even using the 10g link.

 

@Mieze looks like you would be the one to ask about this, does this IOreg look right to you? I am using IntelMausi for the onboard network. (my damn AQC107 card just went down while I was writing this ☹️)

[Mieze]

@J Lamp Yes, this is correct. The property IONetworkMbufDMADrivers lists driver which still use traditional data buffers called mbufs. IOSkywalk based network drivers use different data buffers but this interface is undocumented which makes it nearly impossible to develop a perfectly working driver for independent developers.

Edited May 29 by Mieze
Typo

[J Lamp]

Thanks for the feedback 👍

[sines]

My McFiver works fine in Windows 11 (although the port speed is limited to 1.4G instead of 10G), and it only functions as an NVMe - PCIe interface in Ventura.
I am trying to follow steps to get the right Aquantia .aml / .kexts to activate 10G networks, but so far I'm striking out. I can login, but as soon as any network activity happens (Helllooooo Creative Cloud updater!) I receive a kernel panic.
Thoughts? 

machine in question: MSI Z590 MPG Carbon Gaming Wifi, Core i9 11900K, Corsair Vengeance 32GB RAM, Corsair Liquid Cooler, Radeon RX6800XT, Ventura 13.6.7

[Slice]

On 5/29/2024 at 12:07 AM, J Lamp said:

Yeah, it is strange. When the card works it's rock solid, when it doesn't it's a PITA.

 

I have had the AQC107 drop out while saturating the link on my onboard I219-v and not even using the 10g link.

 

@Mieze looks like you would be the one to ask about this, does this IOreg look right to you? I am using IntelMausi for the onboard network. (my damn AQC107 card just went down while I was writing this ☹️)

 

But I think DMA is not DMAR.

[meg2014]

6 hours ago, sines said:

My McFiver works fine in Windows 11 (although the port speed is limited to 1.4G instead of 10G), and it only functions as an NVMe - PCIe interface in Ventura.
I am trying to follow steps to get the right Aquantia .aml / .kexts to activate 10G networks, but so far I'm striking out. I can login, but as soon as any network activity happens (Helllooooo Creative Cloud updater!) I receive a kernel panic.
Thoughts? 

machine in question: MSI Z590 MPG Carbon Gaming Wifi, Core i9 11900K, Corsair Vengeance 32GB RAM, Corsair Liquid Cooler, Radeon RX6800XT, Ventura 13.6.7

 

Here's something to consider......

 

I would highly recommend you review Mieze's IntelLucy kext for Intel X540 and X550 (X520 too, I think). Used X540 and X550's are available on eBay (pretty cheap) and newer units (mostly refurbished) are available on aliexpress (and dirt cheap there).

 

I have two, one that I got from eBay and one from aliexpress, both working fine with Mieze's kext on Ventura and Sonoma.

 

I had an ACQ107 for a long time (and I still do) and with each macOS update, well, it might work, and the next one it might not and someone has to tweak something here or there to get it to work again.  

 

With the X500 cards, with a good kext (like Mieze's kext - IntelLucy), you've got a better chance of the NIC will work from one upgrade to another.

 

https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/359009-intellucy-for-the-intel-x500-family/

 

[sines]

11 hours ago, meg2014 said:

I would highly recommend you review Mieze's IntelLucy kext for Intel X540 and X550 (X520 too, I think). Used X540 and X550's are available on eBay (pretty cheap) and newer units (mostly refurbished) are available on aliexpress (and dirt cheap there).

Thanks! However, my reason(s) are for the McFiver are trifold —

1. I own a few already
2. It can hold up to 32TB of M2 NVMe (currently, 8TB)
3. 10G LAN + extra USB-C

So I'm going to keep searching for Marvell .kexts.. using it for the  NVMe storage in the meantime in Ventura.
Thx!