> The naive approach would be to not connect to the dedicated NIC that's indicated on the back and in the instruction manual, but if you do this it masquerades onto the main NIC

cool, thanks for that info.

> just to write off the hardware

maybe you could just standup the mgmt network but blackhole route it at each switch port. The mgmt NIC thinks it's working properly but it can't talk to anyone nor can anyone talk to it.

at the expense of a dedicated switch.