High Sierra native support for 10Gb ethernet

[pastrychef]

So got the Sonnet Solo10G TB3 adapter and use tried it with my Gigabyte Titan Ridge z370 build. Didn't work. Like the Sonnet PCIe card, I see a new Ethernet connection in the Network system preferences but it shows the 'cable not connected' and it never pulls an IP address. Digging into System Report Networking doesn't even show the adapter as listed. Was truly hoping this would work and would save me adding another PCIe card via the X540-T2 that I also got as a backup.

Can anyone suggest any other tweaks that might cause the TB3 adapter to work? One thing I was thinking was that since I am using the SMBIOS of iMac 18,3 that it might be an issue since that config doesn't support 10gb ethernet. Would it matter if I switched the SMBIOS to iMac Pro? Perhaps @pastrychef or @mm2margaret have some insights here.

I use iMac18,3 with my Gigabyte GC-AQC107. It works good.

I think someone else in this thread tried Thunderbolt to 10GBase-T and never got it to work. Apparently, Thunderbolt attached NICs on mackintoshes have never worked very well.

 

[ydeng]

So got the Sonnet Solo10G TB3 adapter and use tried it with my Gigabyte Titan Ridge z370 build. Didn't work. Like the Sonnet PCIe card, I see a new Ethernet connection in the Network system preferences but it shows the 'cable not connected' and it never pulls an IP address. Digging into System Report Networking doesn't even show the adapter as listed. Was truly hoping this would work and would save me adding another PCIe card via the X540-T2 that I also got as a backup.

Can anyone suggest any other tweaks that might cause the TB3 adapter to work? One thing I was thinking was that since I am using the SMBIOS of iMac 18,3 that it might be an issue since that config doesn't support 10gb ethernet. Would it matter if I switched the SMBIOS to iMac Pro? Perhaps @pastrychef or @mm2margaret have some insights here.

Do you have a "built-in" property on ioreg for the parent of AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion? I mentioned this her a couple of months ago. No one was interested.

 

[mm2margaret]

So got the Sonnet Solo10G TB3 adapter and use tried it with my Gigabyte Titan Ridge z370 build. Didn't work. Like the Sonnet PCIe card, I see a new Ethernet connection in the Network system preferences but it shows the 'cable not connected' and it never pulls an IP address. Digging into System Report Networking doesn't even show the adapter as listed. Was truly hoping this would work and would save me adding another PCIe card via the X540-T2 that I also got as a backup.

Can anyone suggest any other tweaks that might cause the TB3 adapter to work? One thing I was thinking was that since I am using the SMBIOS of iMac 18,3 that it might be an issue since that config doesn't support 10gb ethernet. Would it matter if I switched the SMBIOS to iMac Pro? Perhaps @pastrychef or @mm2margaret have some insights here.

No, the SMBIOS doesn't matter, or at least it shouldn't. It hasn't for anyone else, and I would be surprised if it did on your system.

I would return the Solo10G TB3 adapter, as I have the same impression that @pastrychef has that these don't work, and if you check the reviews, they don't even work that well on real Macs.

idontevenexercise is the user who tried to use a Ethernet - TB adapter, check around post #150 or so......he didn't have much luck.....If you want to keep it and try and hack your way through it, all the best. I would just keep my eye on that return by date if I were you.

If you have a X540T card, I would recommend using that.

 

[misterwiggles]

Thanks for both your @pastrychef and @mm2margaret. I decided not to fight the TB3 path and just go through the X540-T2 mod process with a Linux USB key. Completed it fine. But when I booted my build - again - all I got was the NIC being recognized but a ‘cable not connected’ message in Network prefs. Was ready to just give up. However, I deleted all the plist files from my SystemConfiguration folder related to networking and rebooted. This time the X540 was recognized and the Smalltree driver activated and I got DHCP. Finally! Didn’t have time for testing due to holiday but will do so this weekend. I assume that changing the SMB default writes is the only last thing I need to do related to this. Any other tweaks or performance related suggestions?

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks for both your @pastrychef and @mm2margaret. I decided not to fight the TB3 path and just go through the X540-T2 mod process with a Linux USB key. Completed it fine. But when I booted my build - again - all I got was the NIC being recognized but a ‘cable not connected’ message in Network prefs. Was ready to just give up. However, I deleted all the plist files from my SystemConfiguration folder related to networking and rebooted. This time the X540 was recognized and the Smalltree driver activated and I got DHCP. Finally! Didn’t have time for testing due to holiday but will do so this weekend. I assume that changing the SMB default writes is the only last thing I need to do related to this. Any other tweaks or performance related suggestions?

I never made any changes to SMB. What changes do you want to make?

 

[misterwiggles]

I never made any changes to SMB. What changes do you want to make?

I think it’s pretty common to turn off the smb write verifications that slow down SMB read and write performance. This was covered in the X540 mod post over at MacRumors as one of the steps post getting 10GB ethernet working. I had done it even when using 1GB ethernet as to really sped up network file operations.

 

[misterwiggles]

@pastrychef This is what I am referring to: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205926

 

[pastrychef]

@pastrychef This is what I am referring to: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205926

Ah... No, I've never messed with that. I have always just used AFS and never had any issues.

 

[misterwiggles]

Ah... No, I've never messed with that. I have always just used AFS and never had any issues.

Apple has deprecated AFP in favor of SMB starting with High Sierra I believe. It’s still the the system and it works, obviously, but they aren’t investing in it any longer since SMB provides the most interoperability with other server file systems. So I would look at moving to SMB sooner rather than later as I expect them to remove AFP altogether as soon as the next major MacOS release.

 

[pastrychef]

Apple has deprecated AFP in favor of SMB starting with High Sierra I believe. It’s still the the system and it works, obviously, but they aren’t investing in it any longer since SMB provides the most interoperability with other server file systems. So I would look at moving to SMB sooner rather than later as I expect them to remove AFP altogether as soon as the next major MacOS release.

Yeah, my NAS supports it, but I've just been using AFS for so long, I've just continued to use it. I'll use it until Apple removes it from macOS.