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Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H & Sonnet Presto Gigabit Pro PCIe [GE1000LA-E] issues

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Hi everybody!

For the purpose of building a home server running OS X Server 2.0 Mountain Lion, I bought the relatively cheap Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H mainboard as recommended. Despite some smaller issues with the integrated GPU Intel HD 4000 I found the system to be running great. Unfortunately the Atheros Gigabit LAN chipset is not reliable enough to be used for everyday server tasks. After initial testing I found that local Bonjour services are not broadcast and/or received. In addition the interface just offers 100 MBit link speed to a gigabit ethernet switch close by.

Therefore I decided to go the safe way and ordered a Sonnet Presto Gigabit Pro PCIe [GE1000LA-E]. This LAN adapter features the Marvell Yukon chipset which is supported by OS X Mountain Lion. As a manufacturer of many Mac accessories Sonnet claims that this device should work without any additional drivers. According to postings in this forum the Sonnet solution is the only OOB working ethernet interface.

Before installing this PCI-E adapter card I disabled the internal Atheros LAN device in UEFI. I also removed any Atheros driver in IONetworkingFamily.kext/Contents/Plugins/.

After the PCI-E adapter is installed into the system no network interfaces are being recognized. The Sonnet network adapter does not show any LED status lights upon system power up/shutdown, the boot process or system operation. I tested the other PCI-E expansion ports, none of them worked. The console log does not show any error messages regarding PCI configuration or NIC setup during booting.

The Network adapter is the only expansion card added to the mainboard. UEFI settings are defaults; only changes for compatibility of HD 4000 and USB 3.0 were made. Mainboard software was upgraded to the latest release to date (F6).


My questions:

- Is someone running this or a similar combination of hardware? E.g. the Sonnet LAN adapter and any other Gigabyte Z77 mainboard.
- Does anyone have compatibility issues with the Z77 mainboards and PCI-E expansion cards?
- What other LAN adapters are recommendable?

I saw some people working with the Intel EXPI9301CT PCI-E network adapter and a small modification to the systems default kernel extension set. A Realtek based solution which I have onboard with a Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3 seems not reliable enough to me. After booting the system 5-6 times the adapter does not receive any network packets. An issue which can only be solved by manually sleeping and waking the system. This is acceptable for a desktop but not a server environment.

Any help would be appreciated!
 
I too am having issues with my Presto Gigabit NIC, but different than your problem. I just got a GA-Z77X-UP5 TH. If the Presto NIC is in any PCI-E slot, the system will not boot. I don't even get to the BIOS POST. No splash screen. No error beeps. No error code on the trouble code lcd. Nothing. Fans just spin up and thats it. I know the NIC works because I tested it in my ASUS P8Z68-V. I also have a Rosewill NIC with the same Marvel Yukon chipset and the same thing happens if that card is in any PCI-E slot.

Something in the gigabyte boards really doesn't like these cards. I'm going to submit a support request to gigabyte to see if they can do anything about it. Hopefully it's fixable via a BIOS update.
 
My problem with the Sonnet NIC turned out to be a flaky power suppy. Once i swapped it out it works perfectly.
 
Thought I'll chime in with my experience. I have the UP5 TH motherboard. I bought the Sonnet Presto card since I wanted wake on lan capability. Unfortunately, this card didn't behave well with this motherboard. Though the card worked natively upon startup, it would stop working after waking from sleep. And my bluetooth dongle also would stop working after waking from sleep with this card installed. Another issue I had was that App store apps stopped working (though I later read in forums that this can be easily fixed by resetting various network plists).

Even after I removed the card, the system would not behave properly. The USB ports remained to be flaky after sleep even after I removed the card (never could figure it out). Eventually, I just thought it would be faster to restore my entire hard drive from last days superduper backup than hunt forums for a solution. It took all of 10 minutes to restore back, and system is running just as before without the sonnet card.

Temporary hiccups aside, the card not working after waking from sleep is a huge issue. Another forum member who is running the Presto NIC on this same board confirmed the behavior of the card not working after sleep.

I have bought the HP NC360T. Hopefully it will arrive in a couple of days. I've read it works well though not sure of wake-on-lan. I really don't need a dual NIC, but could not find any other recommendation.
 
Thanks for the update.
There must be something with Z77 boards/bios that's causing this issue.
For Z68 boards and earlier boards, the Sonnet has no problems.
 
powerpcg5 said:
Thanks for the update.
There must be something with Z77 boards/bios that's causing this issue.
For Z68 boards and earlier boards, the Sonnet has no problems.
Click to expand...

I noticed that sonnet website has Mac drivers with this card. Do you think they will help? They don't mentioned any specific version of Mac OS though.
 
It says "This software provides Thunderbolt support for Sonnet's Presto Gigabit Pro PCIe card when used with a Mac mini installed in Sonnet's xMac mini Server PCIe 2.0 expansion system/1U rackmount enclosure."
 
I've done some more testing and this is definitely a problem with Gigabyte's Z77 boards. I also have a Rosewill RC-401-EX NIC, which uses the same Marvel chipset. In fact, the card layouts are identical and the only way you could tell them apart is the Sonnet is on a purple pcb and the Rosewill is on a red pcb. The Rosewill has the same problem after wake. The card is disconnected and no longer seen by the system. And this problem isn't confined to OSX. I booted into Windows 7, put the machine to sleep, woke it up and the card disappears from Windows. I'm going to file a bug with Gigabyte. Hopefully they can address this with a bios update.
 
Thanks rcork for the detailed testing. Looks like I will returning the Presto board. No clue when Gigabyte will fix this issue. I went ahead and bought the dual HP NIC card. It is overkill for what I need. I just need a basic ethernet card on which wake on lan works. The presto (or rosewill) card would have been perfect. Bummed out that it does not work.

I hope WoL on the HP card works (will know in a few days). As far as I know, there is no other solution for WoL to work on the Z77 boards :(
 
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