Olares One: Thunderbolt 10G NIC loses power after 1.12.5 reinstall / BIOS 1.04 update

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1

Update on the OWC Thunderbolt 10G issue

I was able to narrow this down further.

Known good before the upgrade:

Olares 1.12.4
BIOS 1.01
OWC Thunderbolt 3 10G Ethernet Adapter
Used as my normal day-to-day NIC without issue

After upgrading to Olares 1.12.5 and updating BIOS from 1.01 to 1.04, the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC stopped working.

With BIOS 1.04:

BIOS optimized defaults appear to disable TCSS / Thunderbolt.
After re-enabling TCSS / Thunderbolt, the OWC adapter appears under Thunderbolt sysfs but remains unauthorized.
domain0/iommu_dma_protection is 0.
Manual authorization fails with Input/output error.
dmesg shows PCIe tunnel activation failure.
The Aquantia AQC107S endpoint never appears in lspci.

I then downgraded BIOS back to 1.01.

With BIOS 1.01 and Olares 1.12.5:

The OWC Thunderbolt adapter authorizes successfully.
domain0/iommu_dma_protection is 1.
The Aquantia AQC107S appears in lspci.
The atlantic driver binds to enp10s0.

I initially saw instability after that, including PCIe/AER errors such as MalfTLP, CmpltTO, BadDLLP, and atlantic reporting that it could not recover.

I then disconnected the onboard 2.5G Ethernet and booted with only the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC connected.

In that state, the system is currently usable:

enp10s0 is UP
IP address: xxxx/24
Default route: via yyyy dev enp10s0
Link speed: 10000Mb/s full duplex
Link detected: yes

However, dmesg is still repeatedly logging correctable PCIe AER errors on the Thunderbolt PCIe path:

pcieport 0000:09:01.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Correctable, type=Data Link Layer
BadDLLP

So BIOS 1.01 restores functionality, but the Thunderbolt PCIe path still does not look clean under Olares 1.12.5.

Current conclusion:

BIOS 1.04 appears to introduce a Thunderbolt / TCSS / PCIe tunneling regression on this hardware.

BIOS 1.01 restores the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC, but with Olares 1.12.5 I am still seeing repeated correctable PCIe AER BadDLLP errors on the Thunderbolt PCIe path.

There may also be an issue with the post-upgrade dual-NIC/network state, since the OWC NIC is usable when it is the only connected Ethernet interface.

For now I am staying on BIOS 1.01 and using only the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC. Please investigate the BIOS 1.04 Thunderbolt behavior and confirm whether 1.04 has a known issue with Thunderbolt PCIe tunneling, TCSS defaults, or OWC/Aquantia AQC107-based Thunderbolt adapters. Please also advise whether the repeated BadDLLP errors under BIOS 1.01 + Olares 1.12.5 are expected, known, or something that requires a kernel/firmware fix.

2

Update on the OWC Thunderbolt 10G issue

I was able to narrow this down further.

Known good before the upgrade:

Olares 1.12.4
BIOS 1.01
OWC Thunderbolt 3 10G Ethernet Adapter
Used as my normal day-to-day NIC without issue

After upgrading to Olares 1.12.5 and updating BIOS from 1.01 to 1.04, the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC stopped working.

With BIOS 1.04:

BIOS optimized defaults appear to disable TCSS / Thunderbolt.
After re-enabling TCSS / Thunderbolt, the OWC adapter appears under Thunderbolt sysfs but remains unauthorized.
domain0/iommu_dma_protection is 0.
Manual authorization fails with Input/output error.
dmesg shows PCIe tunnel activation failure.
The Aquantia AQC107S endpoint never appears in lspci.

I then downgraded BIOS back to 1.01.

With BIOS 1.01 and Olares 1.12.5:

The OWC Thunderbolt adapter authorizes successfully.
domain0/iommu_dma_protection is 1.
The Aquantia AQC107S appears in lspci.
The atlantic driver binds to enp10s0.

I initially saw instability after that, including PCIe/AER errors such as MalfTLP, CmpltTO, BadDLLP, and atlantic reporting that it could not recover.

However, after disconnecting the onboard 2.5G Ethernet and booting with only the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC connected, the system is currently working:

enp10s0 is UP
Link speed: 10000Mb/s full duplex
Link detected: yes

Current conclusion:

BIOS 1.04 appears to introduce a Thunderbolt / TCSS / PCIe tunneling regression on this hardware.

BIOS 1.01 restores the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC.

There may also be an issue with the post-upgrade dual-NIC/network state, since the OWC NIC works when it is the only connected Ethernet interface.

For now I am staying on BIOS 1.01 and using only the OWC Thunderbolt 10G NIC. Please investigate the BIOS 1.04 Thunderbolt behavior and confirm whether 1.04 has a known issue with Thunderbolt PCIe tunneling, TCSS defaults, or OWC/Aquantia AQC107-based Thunderbolt adapters.

3

Hi there,

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience. We suspect this might be an issue with BIOS v1.04. However, BIOS v1.05 is expected to be released in just a few hours and should resolve this for you.

We suggest waiting for v1.05 together to see if it fixes the problem. If you still encounter any issues after updating, please feel free to leave a comment right here anytime!

4

Thank you! I will check it out and let you know if it makes a difference.

5

Just a friendly reminder that BIOS v1.05 is now ready for download.

You can find the update link here:

Looking forward to hearing good news from you.

6

I ran into this exact issue as well just yesterday. This information helped resolve the issue without flashing the BIOS to an earlier version. I can also confirm the new 1.05 BIOS appears to resolve this issue.