Usage of miniPCI-E - ethernet

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Hi,

I’m just curious that there are drivers in ROS to manage miniPCI-E ethernet cards working on RouterBoards, like RB912UAG-2HPnD for example.

I want to use this ethernet card to add second ETH port to board without using USB2ETH dongle …
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sd-Mpe24031-Mini-Pci-Express-Gbe-Ethernet-W-Rj45-10-100-1000-Base-T-Lan-Card-/370940540143?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565dc774ef

Is there any possibility Normis ? :sunglasses:

Thanks !

BTW: I do not want to use different board due to their bigger footprint.

2

++1

3

Try it and write… :slight_smile:

4

Quite expensive test, dont you think honzam ? :sunglasses:

5

I don’t think it will work. There is no way to tell for sure without testing, but I give very low probability.

6

normis: OK, but is there any restriction in miniPCI-E implementation on RouterBoards, like “USB-only” ? Or it is implemented like whole interface specification describes ? If so, there is only possible problem - with drivers. Which can be quite easly resolved in another ROS version. Am I correct ?

7

We don’t add 3rd party drivers. If your driver is in the vanilla kernel 3.3.5, it might work.

8

I use with succes an intel i350 dual gigabit minipci-e card. But it works only in x86 hardware, strangely it doesn’t work at all with any rb with minipci-e slot (rb912,rb800). It is detected in pci list but doesnt work in routerboard. The same card with the same ros works flawlessly with x86. So I assume minipcie in routeroard is somehow disabled.

9

Normis: How it is possible that miniPCI-E-ethernet on X86 works and on rb912 it does not work?

10

Perhaps related to the different hardware architectures?
I mean when a driver is working on x86 machines it could be translated to MIPSBE
and/or PPC hardware architectures but there is no guaranty that the driver will
also offers all functions and/or is running quite.