RTL8168/8111 PCI-E failing gbit speed

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This problem has been driving me potty this past few days...

 

I noticed that the network connectivity from my new-ish machine (Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 based) has dropped to 10/100 full duplex on both of the network on-board NIC's which are Realtek RTL8168/8111 PCI-E type.

 

These are more than capable of handling the speed and are hooked up to a Gb switch so there's no real reason why they should be cr*pping out like this. There are a number of 10/100 units on the system but the primary server is Gb enabled and connected to the same switch.

 

I've downloaded the RT utility for testing and it's claiming that the 5/6 & 7/8 channels are "unknown" on both ports so I'm now at a complete loss to explain what's going on.

 

I've tried downloading new drivers, uninstalling, etc... but no joy. Any suggestions?

[kmount]

Tried a different cable?

 

To achieve Gigabit over CAT5e it uses all 4 pairs (as opposed to just 2 pairs for 100mbit) so if its throwing a wobbler on those two it might be worth a diff cable, or a bit more drastic plug into the port the server is plugged into just to be sure it's not a port configuration issue.

 

Does seem a bit weird though =( Sorry..

[PeterW]

What happens if you manually force the link speed to 1Gbps instead of Autonegotiation in the NIC properties?

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What happens if you manually force the link speed to 1Gbps instead of Autonegotiation in the NIC properties?

 

It sits for about 30 - 40 seconds and then drops to 100 Full Duplex and just ignores the force command.

 

Re: Cables, already tried that, tested the cables, re-crimped and even tried ones that I know work elsewhere... Nada. Very annoying...

 

Going to try one new cable from scratch and see if that helps but it does seem rather "odd"

[RabbieBurns]

onboard nics use the CPU for the processing, and some cheaper nics use the cpu also. How fast is your processor, is it under a pretty heavy load?

 

I was getting really crap speeds out of my realtek gigE nics, and the pc was locking up, and replaced them with some more expensive intel ones with their own processor chip and it fixed everything.

 

Also, my laptop with a gigE onboard craps out at about 12MB/s and the cpu hits 100% when doing a big transfer.

 

Not sure if any of this is relevant or not.

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To be honest I'd already decided that the cost of an Intel NIC vs' therapy bills was a no brainer so I've already ordered a PCI-E 1x NIC in to deal with the issue in the interim.

 

I would still like to know what's causing it though.

 

FYI: This is an Intel Quad Core Q8200 system so it shouldn't be having these issues re: CPU...

 

I'll see how I go with a new cable when I've had a chance to tidy the place up and report back in a few days.

[kmount]

Also, my laptop with a gigE onboard craps out at about 12MB/s and the cpu hits 100% when doing a big transfer.

 

Vista?

 

I have ridiculous issues transferring large chunks of data over the lan with Vista. (Even on the new SP2)

[PeterW]

Are you able to direct connect it to another machine with a GB nic to see if you can get GB speeds at all?

[RabbieBurns]

Vista?

 

I have ridiculous issues transferring large chunks of data over the lan with Vista. (Even on the new SP2)

 

XP. But its only a 1.2ghz centrino duo so not the fastest in the world. I was looking to get an expresscard gigabit nic instead of using the onboard one, but havent seemed to find a decent one.

[PeterW]

It seemed to work alright for HardOCP [H] Enthusiast - GIGABYTE X48T-DQ6

what switch is it are there any firmware updates for it?

[SYNACK]

Are the cables all cat5e or higher grade the whole way through? GB ethernet will run on cat5 but only up to about 15m before it starts becomming unstable.

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Thought I'd feed back on this one as I found the culprit about 2 weeks back and knew I'd asked for help on here.

 

The problem? It was a loop... Somehow I'd managed to loop two cables between my server and the switch that was on the other end of the room... Think it was back when my modem routed directly to the server and not via my smoothwall box but either way it didn't give the usual insanity until I did some re-organisation of the office space and killed the network with the loop.

 

Obviously something stopped it kicking everything off completely so I didn't spot it when I was troubleshooting this originally but I figured I'd report back as it may be a useful tip for someone else hitting a similar problem.