Intel X520 and X540 for Windows XP

Discussion in 'Windows XP Hardware' started by secpar, Mar 6, 2021.

  1. secpar

    secpar

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    Windows XP 32-bit and Windows XP-64-bit.

    A driver solution for Intel Ethernet adapters that are based on Intel X520 and Intel X540.

    Maybe you're an XP holdout and you're looking to use a 10 gigabit Ethernet adapter, but have exhausted all options? That was me. I've got some good news, I've found some solutions. Observe/expand the 'Comments.txt' quote.

    (It appears I cannot upload the RAR file that contains both 32 and 64)... so, you may have to piece things together. Or, if the ZIP files attached to this thread persist.

    Comments.txt


    Gather the pieces yourself, or you may use what is provided/attached here.

    Windows XP 64-bit INF File
    Rename from ixn51x64.txt to ixn51x64.inf

    Windows XP 32-bit INF File
    Rename from ixn5132.txt to ixn5132.inf



    Only 1.4 gig connection:
    The Windows XP 32-bit drivers, when I last tried them, showed the adapter coming in with a 1.4 gig connection. If this is your experience too, then it's the same as mine and have not developed a solution as of the time of this posting. Perhaps if you have discovered a fix, you can share it here.
     

    Attached Files:

    secpar, Mar 6, 2021
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  2. secpar

    secpar

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    Intel v17.4 PROXGB driver pack for 10G Network Adapters
    https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/835632


    I have successfully merged the INF files from the ATTO drivers to version 17.4 Intel driver pack.

    ALL you need to do, after downloading the ISO file from the page above:
    1. Extract ALL of the "IXN" files (including ixnmsg.dll, nicco2.dll, NicInIXN.dll, PROUnstl.exe) from the NDIS5x folder.

    (This picture shows you all the files you will need, example is XP64)
    v17-4 (sm).png

    2. Delete the INF file, or rename it by changing its extension something other than *.inf.
    3. Download and Copy the TXT files attached to THIS post, and move them into the NDIS5x folder you extracted from the ISO.
    4. Rename the TXT files you got from this post, and change to INF file.
    5. Install the driver at your leisure.


    This later version of the PROXGB driver may not actually yield anything new over the last incarnation released... but maybe it will function better. This is totally beyond my scope.

    Also, this later iteration may yield fruitful results for more network adapters over the previous or the base ATTO drivers.

    Possible Network Adapters this will work with...
    Remember, I'm using an Intel X540 network card, and it's working just fine when selecting X520.

    Again, no guarantees that this will work (for you), but it worked for me in Windows XP64.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 15, 2021
    secpar, Mar 15, 2021
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  3. secpar

    secpar

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    Here's the view from a Windows XP 32-bit machine. Drivers working. However, the connection appears to be limited to 1.4 Gbps. However, the expanded Adapter tab "Link Speed" shows 10 Gbps/Full Duplex.

    So, is it really 10 Gbps or 1.4 Gbps? I don't know (XP32 is my alternate boot). Could be either, or could be the lowest one reported.

    Image1.png Image3.png
    Image4.png Image5.png Image6.png Image7.png
    Image8.png Image9.png Image10.png Image11.png
     
    secpar, Mar 15, 2021
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  4. secpar

    secpar

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    While on Windows XP 32-bit, I checked the connection from my computer on the 10G ethernet card and the switch. The switch reports the link as being 10G.

    As far as I'm concerned, the 1.4 Gbps may be an erroneous report on the adapter details.

    10GBXP32.png
     
    secpar, Mar 24, 2021
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  5. secpar

    Kithylin

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    The only issue with this is XP it's self and the hardware it's on. I have run XP on very nice computers (Intel P67 board with I5-3570K @ 5.1 Ghz overclocked + DDR3 @ 2500 Mhz on two Samsung Pro 850 SATA SSD's in RAID-0 that do 1100 MB/s reads and 750 MB/s writes in benchmark programs, in XP-32) but even with hardware like this I can't get XP to sustain full speed 1 Gigabit connections over my network (which is 100~120 MB/s) over the LAN copying to the XP rig. It maxes out around 50~65 MB/s on the XP machine and makes the entire machine nearly freeze and be unresponsive just trying to copy at that speed. And no it's not my network or my hardware. My modern Ryzen 5800X computer can pull full 115~120 MB/s sustained out of my NAS on the same switch. It's some sort of limitation with XP-32 and it's TCP/IP stack. I've tried nearly everything. Onboard RealTek gigabit NIC's, Intel Pro series PCIE NIC's with TCP offloading support enabled + buffering, etc. It's not the system's CPU being overloaded either, none of the CPU cores are maxed out. It's some sort of limitation with XP.

    It's very unlikely you would ever get any machine running XP to actually sustain full 10 Gigabit speeds (1250 MB/s) even if you get the adapter running.
     
    Kithylin, Nov 17, 2021
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  6. secpar

    Samir

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    The reason for this is because xp32 is using smb1, which maxes out at under 100MB/s ime. I have nas units that will saturate gigabit to win7 machines, but the same on xp maxes out just as you've experienced.
     
    Samir, Nov 17, 2021
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  7. secpar

    Kithylin

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    Aha okay. Thank you for at least confirming that I'm not crazy. Well.. I mean, it's super awesome that they figured out how to get 10-Gigabit working in XP but I guess there's not much real point to having it working? It won't work any better than a normal Gigabit network adapter in XP I think.
     
    Kithylin, Nov 17, 2021
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  8. secpar

    Samir

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    A single stream won't work faster, but you can have a lot more single streams to your aggregate can be faster. Ie, if I was copying to 10x nas units at 50MB/s, that's 500MB/s. :)

    And actually, I just thought of this--if you're using something like ftp, you should be able to hit max speeds since it doesn't use smb.
     
    Samir, Nov 17, 2021
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  9. secpar

    Kithylin

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    I didn't think about that! That's a valid point. So the limitation in XP isn't total 50 MB/s, just 50 MB/s per stream? Interesting!
     
    Kithylin, Nov 17, 2021
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  10. secpar

    Samir

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    I believe so. Because I think I have ran 2x speed tests (lan_speedtest.exe) to two different nas units simultaneously and the sum was full gigabit.
     
    Samir, Nov 17, 2021
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  11. secpar

    Kithylin

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    I think I'll have to try that later with my XP system and see how it does.
     
    Kithylin, Nov 17, 2021
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  12. secpar

    Samir

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    Just for curiosity, I just ran 3x lan_speedtest tests of 500MB to 3 different nas units that I know hit 50MB+ in xp32. When looking at taskmanager, it was close to 80% gigabit and each of the tests when combined, approached 80MB/sec. This is on a xp32 system with an x3360 xeon (q95xx equivalent).
     
    Samir, Nov 17, 2021
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  13. secpar

    Kithylin

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    Well I guess it *MIGHT* be possible to get an XP-32 system to saturate a 10-Gigabit link then, so I would retract my earlier comment. However that would be nearly 30 x streams at the same time.......................... o_O
     
    Kithylin, Nov 17, 2021
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  14. secpar

    Samir

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    Yep--there's always hoops to jump through when trying to do what has previously been deamed 'impossible' ;) Please do let us know how it turns out! Also, I would look into testing using iperf as that will definitely show if the adapter is running at full 10GB. You may need to use the -P parameter to increase the number of streams though.
     
    Samir, Nov 17, 2021
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  15. secpar

    secpar

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    So, it turns out that despite even having a 10Gigabit link, I have discovered that the bottleneck on speed isn't directly related to hardware. No, not at all.

    Under a linux operating system, I was using Clonezilla Live. Under clonezilla, for saving/loading of disk images, it will support up to SMB v3. The computer under this live operating system sends/receives data to my NAS at speeds that would match a direct disk-to-disk speed.

    The PROBLEM with Windows XP in using a 10gigabit NIC is that SMB v1 is limited compared to later versions of windows that use SMB 2 or 3, or higher.

    So, while these drivers can give one a 10gigabit connection, you may never see the full potential.
     
    secpar, May 7, 2022
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  16. secpar

    Samir

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    SMB might have this issue, but you should still be able to get full speeds when using something like ftp which is native tcp/ip.
     
    Samir, May 7, 2022
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