Dell AX 16G NIC Drivers

AzL Beacon bundles the network drivers for Dell AX 16G nodes extracted from the Dell Solution Builder Extension (SBE) package.

Driver inventory

Vendor	Adapter family	INF	Version	Date
Broadcom	NetXtreme-E 57400/57500 (bnxt)	bnxtnd.inf	236.1.152.0	2025-12-17
Broadcom	NetXtreme 5720 (1GbE LOM)	b57nd60a.inf	221.0.8.0	2025-07-03
Intel	E810 800-series (ice driver)	icea.inf	1.17.73.0	2025-04-11
Intel	E823 800-series (scea driver)	scea.inf	1.16.58.0	2025-04-11
Mellanox/NVIDIA	ConnectX mlx5/WinOF-2	mlx5.inf	24.4.26429.0	2024-04-16

Source

All drivers were extracted from:

Bundle_SBE_Dell_AX-16G-45n0c_5.0.2603.1641.zip
└── DriversGE\Network\
    ├── Broadcom\5720\WYPPJ\        → drivers/dell-ax/broadcom-5720/
    ├── Broadcom\57400-57500\78X9T\ → drivers/dell-ax/broadcom-bnxt/
    ├── Intel\E810\J4YG9\           → drivers/dell-ax/intel-e810/
    ├── Intel\E823\J4YG9\           → drivers/dell-ax/intel-e823/
    └── Mellanox\CX\G6M58\          → drivers/dell-ax/mellanox-cx/

SBE package: SBE_Dell_AX-16G-45n0c_5.0.2603.1641
SBE build version: 10.2601.1002.2028
CreationDate: 2026-03-19

DISM injection

The build script injects all drivers recursively via DISM:

dism /Image:<mount> /Add-Driver /Driver:drivers\dell-ax /Recurse

All drivers are signed (.cat catalog included), so no /ForceUnsigned flag is needed.

Supported models

Dell model	Notes
AX660	Supported
AX760	Supported
AX4510c	Supported
AX4520c	Supported
APEXMC variants	Supported

Updating drivers

To update to a newer SBE bundle:

1. Download the new SBE zip from Dell/Azure Local update channel
2. Extract DriversGE\Network\ into the five drivers/dell-ax/ subdirectories, replacing existing files
3. Update the version table in this document and regenerate the manifest: pwsh scripts/New-DriverManifest.ps1
4. Rebuild the ISO

TIP

Dell firmware (not included) The SBE bundle also contains network firmware DUPs (Broadcom FW 36.11.56.00, Mellanox ConnectX FW 26.41.10.00, Intel E810 FW 23.61.3). These are not injected into the Beacon image — firmware updates are applied through Dell SBE / Cluster-Aware Updating during the cluster update lifecycle.

Driver manifest

drivers/driver-manifest.json lists every bundled driver file with its size and SHA256, and for every INF the provider, class and DriverVer, plus where each set came from. It is generated by scripts/New-DriverManifest.ps1; a test compares it with the files on disk, so a driver that changes without the manifest changing fails CI. The build copies the INF/SYS/CAT/DLL hashes that were actually injected into build-manifest.json.

Other OEMs

WinPE only carries the in-box network drivers. A node whose adapters have no in-box driver shows no address in the network status block. Adding drivers for other hardware:

1. Boot Beacon on the node, open the menu option 7 console and list the adapters without a driver: pnputil /enum-devices /problem (note the PCI\VEN_xxxx&DEV_xxxx hardware IDs).
2. Get the driver package for Windows Server 2022 / Azure Stack HCI OS x64 from the vendor or the OEM's Solution Builder Extension, or export it from a provisioned node: Export-WindowsDriver -Online -Destination C:\drivers.
3. Keep only the network drivers (.inf, .sys, .cat, and any DLLs the INF names). Use WinPE-compatible, signed (.cat present) packages.
4. Pass the folder: .\src\Build-WinPEImage.ps1 -DriverPath C:\drivers (searched recursively; the DriverVer of each INF is printed in the build log).
5. Optionally keep the set in the repository under drivers/<oem>-<model>/ with its source noted in scripts/New-DriverManifest.ps1 -SetSource, then regenerate the manifest.

The default -DriverPath is drivers/dell-ax; to build without any added driver pass -DriverPath ''.