Mellanox PPC SwitchX Update v3.6.4006

Mellanox has released a firmware update for their SwitchX switches: v3.6.4006.

We've already updated our two SX1012 switches to v3.6.3508 as per our blog post Mellanox Prep for RoCE RDMA. That means that we'll be able to upgrade without any intermediary steps as per the section Upgrade From Previous Versions.

When looking into the Release Notes for the new firmware version we see:


Note that in our case we are running ConnectX-3 Pro ( MCX354A) adapters. So, we'll be keeping firmware 2.4.5030 on those NICs until such time as Mellanox lets us know that we are able to bump them up to 2.4.7000.


Looking in the Changes and New Features section there doesn't seem to be anything specific to us however there are quite a few items listed for versions between v3.6.3508 and v3.6.4006!

There are a few items in the General Known Issues section that we need to be aware of.

• Point 32: Statistics files are reset which means graphs get reset.
• Point 49 indicates that a faulty cable may cause other ports to delay their "rise". 
• Point 50 is important. 40GbE passive copper cables 5m in length may experience "rise" issues if connected to a third party 40GbE NIC.
• Point 93: Break-out Cables
• Odd ports might suffer from Tx drops even when global flow control is enabled.
  Set the egress poll to 8M using the following command:
  “pool ePool0 direction egress-mc size 8M type dynamic”.
•  Point 128: QoS: ETS does not work on SN2100 switch system.

I suggest checking out the Bug Fixes section near the end of the document. ;)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service
Twitter: @MPECSInc

ALPS “Touch Pad Diagnostics” Pop-Up Fix

One of our newly set up Windows 10 Enterprise 64-bit Toshiba Tecra Z50-C laptops was throwing the following pop-up seemingly at random:

ALPS Touch Pad Diagnostics

Collect Diagnostics
Press the button to collect the result to log file.

The pop-up got to be quite annoying very quickly.

Fix Steps

A quick search turned up the following:

1: Elevate a CMD
2: Copy and Paste the following into CMD:
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\SynTP\Parameters\Debug /v DumpKernel /d 00000000 /t REG_DWORD /f
3: Reboot

Conclusion

Note that the above registry setting is on one line. Once it was set up in the registry the problem went away

As always, make sure to test the fix first!

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service
Twitter: @MPECSInc

VELCRO Ties: It’s not easy being green!

This spring and now summer I’ve been spending a lot of time in the garden. From getting things ready for planting, planting, and now keeping the weeds at bay and the plants from being thirsty!

Well, on one of the trips into one of our Canadian Tire big box hardware stores I stumbled across these:

Yeah, okay, so what you might say?

Well, that 45' role was $6 before taxes. $6!

Needless to say, I purchased a good number of roles while I was there to use as wire ties in our Proof-of-Concept (PoC) systems plus others.

I personally don't have a problem with the colour green. ;)

Philip Elder
Microsoft High Availability MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
Our Cloud Service
Twitter: @MPECSInc