SOLARFLARE XTREMESCALE X2 SERIES DRIVER PACKAGE Package Version: v1.2.1.1004 Overview This is the v1.2.1 Windows driver package for Solarflare XtremeScale X2 series network adapters. Supported hardware platforms The drivers, utilities and applications contained in this package support the following adapters: - Solarflare XtremeScale X2522-25G Adapter - Solarflare XtremeScale X2522 (10G) Adapter - Solarflare XtremeScale X2541 Adapter - Solarflare XtremeScale X2542 Adapter Supported operating systems This package contains drivers and applications supporting either the _Desktop Experience_ or _Server Core_ installation options of Windows Server 2016 (version 1607, build 14393); _Nano Server_ installations are not supported. Contents ----------------------------------------------------------------------- File Description -------------------- -------------------------------------------------- readme.txt This file. license.txt Solarflare software license agreement sfn.inf sfn.sys Solarflare XtremeScale X2 series network adapter sfn.cat driver. sfn.man An event instrumentation manifest describing the driver's Windows Event Log channels and event messages. sfn.wprp A Windows Performance Recorder profile for gathering driver analytic logging and performance data. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation Unpack the driver package ZIP archive into a dedicated folder. From a PowerShell prompt, type: Expand-Archive -DestinationPath To install the driver and event instrumentation manifest, as a user with local administrative privileges from an elevated PowerShell prompt, type: Set-Location pnputil.exe /add-driver sfn.inf /install wevtutil.exe install-manifest sfn.man /resourceFilePath:"${Env:SystemRoot}\system32\drivers\sfn.sys" /messageFilePath:"${Env:SystemRoot}\system32\drivers\sfn.sys" To verify the expected driver version is installed and loaded, type: Get-NetAdapter |? DriverProvider -eq Solarflare | Format-Table -View Driver Confirm that the output includes at least one Solarflare network adapter, and the expected driver version is shown (i.e. 1.2.1.1004). Known issues For an up to date list of errata and workarounds please refer to the known issues database at https://support.solarflare.com/. Additional information For detailed instructions of how to install and configure the Windows drivers and applications please refer to the Windows chapter in the "Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide" (SF-103837-CD). Support Please contact your local Solarflare support representative or email support@solarflare.com. Change logs Solarflare XtremeScale X2 Series Driver v1.2.1.1004 --- Feature Release FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS: - Support for X2541 and X2542 Adapters. - Support for Receive Segment Coalescing (RSC) offload. - Support the NDIS standardized network adapter configuration parameters to configure receive and transmit queue sizes: - The 'Receive Buffers' configuration option sets number of receive packet buffers allocated for each RSS receive queue. An appropriate hardware receive queue size is chosen by the driver based on this setting. Increasing this value may improve receive performance and reduce occurrences of packet discards under heavy load, but consumes additional system memory. Setting this value higher than necessary can waste limited system resources, impact overall system performance and may cause the driver to fail initialization. - The 'Transmit Buffers' configuration option sets the number of descriptors that can be queued simultaneously on each hardware transmit queue. An appropriate hardware transmit queue size is chosen by the driver based on this setting. As each packet may require multiple descriptors the number of packets that can be queued simultaneously may be lower than the queue size. Increasing this value may improve transmit performance, but also consumes more system resources. - Increased receive and transmit datapath performance (due to improved NUMA locality of memory allocations for hardware queues and receive packet buffers). - Additional MAC and datapath statistics are exposed via Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). FIXES: - Improve handling of memory allocation failures for event, receive or transmit queue common buffers. (WIN-393) - Fix an issue with receive queue refill that would result in all received packets being discarded once a receive queue has processed approximately 4.3 billion packets. (WIN-387) - Include the count of frames discarded due to hardware vFIFO overflow in the dropped receive buffer error count which is reported to NDIS via OID_GEN_STATISTICS and OID_GEN_RCV_ERROR queries. (WIN-377) - Fix an issue that could result in a DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION (133) bug check when unblocking a transmit queue after it had become full. This issue is more likely to be triggered when using a smaller than default hardware transmit queue size, a high number of physical memory fragments per send request (such as when firmware assisted Large Send Offload is disabled) and extreme load. (WIN-367) - Reduce the time taken for network adapter disable, system restart and system shutdown by upto 5 seconds. (WIN-319) - Limit the number of receive indication events and send completion events processed in a single DPC reducing the possibility of a DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION (133) bug check. (WIN-214) v1.0.0.1012 --- Feature Release - Initial release supporting X2522 (10G) and X2522-25G adapters. Copyright Copyright 2017-2019 Solarflare Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms.