Realtek 8111E kicking my b*tt

[defected07]

Intel GT Pro and Trendnet 8 port switch ordered!

Being the cheap bastard I am, went with free shipping, which means they probably won't be here until next week. :/

[Whaler_99]

Interesting note - the Realtek 8111E drive on my mobo that was having the problems, showing Half Duplex support for full GB, check on a Windows 7 system that uses exact same setup (both boards/cpu/ram where purchased at same time). Windows 7 only show support for GB at full duplex - no half duplex option. So, I wonder if it isn't so much the chipset itself, but, the driver included in this version? Might 5b6a have a better drivers? Might the driver support for Realtek just not be that great?

Since gone with the PCI-E NIC, not a single issue...

Shawn

[defected07]

Yeah, its been mentioned the drive could be at fault.  I'm on 5.0b6a and having issues related to intensive file transfers.  Haven't really tried anything else, so I'm saying fuck it, and the NIC should be here soon lol.

[thejinx0r]

Hi,

I found this thread trough the wiki, so sorry for bringing it back up.
Anyways, I have the asus e35m1 motherboard ( the pro version).

How can I test whether or not my server is having issues with 5b10?
I usually don't do anything intense with my server, but I'd like to still make sure that the server is working fine.

[cyrnel]

It's pretty easy. Get a parity check started, log in at the console (not via network), tail -f /var/log/syslog, and then copy large files to the server. The two board I've tried would throw errors in a few seconds at 100Mb, crashing eventually. Everything happens faster at Gb speeds.

The problems will show eventually even without the parity check, it just takes longer.

They've also bad compatibility issues with PCIe SATA cards.

They've released a few newer BIOS versions. I've used the first (April) 1002 which didn't help. I haven't yet tried the July 1002 version so can't say. I'm currently running a 2nd-hand copy of version 0091 which I assume is still in development. It's been stable in my limited tests but the speeds aren't great. I haven't tried any of my PCIe cards with it yet.

[thejinx0r]

It's pretty easy. Get a parity check started, log in at the console (not via network), tail -f /var/log/syslog, and then copy large files to the server. The two board I've tried would throw errors in a few seconds at 100Mb, crashing eventually. Everything happens faster at Gb speeds.

The problems will show eventually even without the parity check, it just takes longer.

They've also bad compatibility issues with PCIe SATA cards.

They've released a few newer BIOS versions. I've used the first (April) 1002 which didn't help. I haven't yet tried the July 1002 version so can't say. I'm currently running a 2nd-hand copy of version 0091 which I assume is still in development. It's been stable in my limited tests but the speeds aren't great. I haven't tried any of my PCIe cards with it yet.

I don't see any additional output.
According to mii-tools, I'm using 1Gbs at full duplex.

I have started a parity check, started transferring 12GB's (one stream) and nothing new in my syslog.

So I am not sure if I am not getting errors because of that.

In any case, performance is just degraded and while using plex, the buffering and loading times are noticeably longer.

[cyrnel]

Do you know which BIOS you have?

I think two people here have reported the boards worked for them, even with early BIOS versions. Others have the same problems, and all kinds of problems with PCIe cards for anything besides video. I've used two of the e35m1-pro boards and behavior was identical. Strange animal.

The newer mystery BIOS might have promise. It's the first I've tried that hasn't thrown errors, and that without any changes to settings. I'll see if I can find out more about it.

[thejinx0r]

I don't know which Bios I have.
I could find out next time I reboot my computer.

I just bought it, maybe 2 weeks ago and I am using the Bios that was already installed.

[Whaler_99]

FYI - the driver that Limetech included in the Beta10 build was a slightly different build for a different chipset - it has since introduced other errors that people are seeing and he will be reverting back to the old driver - the one that freezes up for some of us on intense data transfers...

Shawn

[thejinx0r]

So I have a 0601 BIOS x64. I don't know if the x64 is part of the version, but that's what is reported by the bios.

What are the new problems?

[Whaler_99]

A few of us noticed SUPER slow parity checks as the main issue, I think there were some other freezing issues as well - but the parity check was the main problem...

Shawn

[thejinx0r]

Oh ok.
My parity checks are "decent". It's 65MB/s about on 5 WD20EARS.

But I do notice the network problem. I am watching a movie through plex and transfering 150GB of files and the transferring seems to stop every 50GB or so.

[defected07]

What is a reasonable parity check? Since it's only across the motherboard, should technically max out the read/write speeds of your drives, correct? As long as no other I/O is going on?

[Whaler_99]

My parity checks currently are crawling... used to get between 85 and 100 Mb/s for my systems... now that beta11 is up, going to upgrade soon.

Shawn

[thejinx0r]

After upgrading, my parity checks are ~100 MB/s consistently.