Realtek 8111E kicking my b*tt

[VampyreGTX]

Thanks guys! Forgot to add, plug cable into new NIC card as well in there  lol

[LaurentHU]

Same issue here with same board as Cyrnel - this is nerving! Tried all possible tricks with Bios, network card still make the whole machine freeze when used after a while - not even intensively!

[defected07]

Does this kill your connection on just the server, or for your router?

My router has been dying while transferring large files to the server from my Mac.  Both devices are wired into my Airport Extreme, which is extending the AT&T RG via Ethernet.  AT&T holds its connection to the internet fine, but I have to reset my Airport Extreme.  Anyone know any basic settings that'll prevent this from happening? Is it the router causing the problem, or my Mac or server that's killing the router?

[dgaschk]

Check that you have the latest firmware for the Airport Extreme.

[defected07]

Yup, I do.  I don't know what the best approach is to using the APE.  Extend a network, create a new one? The AT&T RG is just 100mbit, so I have the APE where all my devices for data transfer are.  I'll see if this occurs again while transferring a lot of stuff.  Going to my friends' this week to stock up on a lot of HD media, so that'll be a true test for the machine (unfortunately my router won't be there to test)

[cyrnel]

I'm beginning to think there's something deeper than just a nic/driver problem. Still using 5.0b6a, preclearing several disks gave strange results. When the other three 2TB drives had finished, the F4 on sdb was trailing badly, still about 90% through the 2nd step. Throughput was in the low 20MB/s while the other drives had been 4x that or better. I moved the Samsung to sde where it progressed at closer to 100MB/s (though I'd have said an erratic 80-100MB/s). Of course I had to try another array using those disk assignments. Nope, it still crashed when the nic was pushed.

So, right now I'm installing Slackware 13.1 to see if a vanilla Samba volume on recent drivers can handle the stress.

[LaurentHU]

Cyrnel do you mean that it crashed when the NIC was pushed with your new NIC?

[cyrnel]

No, still testing with the Realtek. Intel card won't be here until Tues.

Edit: The part that was interesting was how a drive that otherwise seems fine (precleared previously and SMART says okay) is performing so poorly on one SATA channel but 4x faster on another. That's without any nic involvement. Very preliminary results of course. I haven't tried to reproduce the poor results. Probably shouldn't be posting yet but it's weird/interesting.

With a freshly updated Slackware 13.1 install I just got ~20MB/s from a Win7 machine. No stability issues after several copies. Not great, but better.

So far, I'm not a fan of the ASUS EFI. If my linux skills are a two-left-thumbed hippo, this EFI feels like a straight-jacket.

[Whaler_99]

Just wanted to add, I am also having an issue with this motherboard which uses... a Realtek 8111E chipset. I also have a support post going. Few users showing same thing. Soon as this nic is pushed, typically mine was when trying to write to the array, system complete froze and had to hard reboot. Got the weird "eth link up" messages via tail and also the ones that the previous message was repeated x times...

I have since put in a dual port HP PCI-E nic, and everything is great. No more freezes, no more of those weird "link up" messages, etc. I just had to plug my cable in to each port and ping the server to find out which port unRaid was using.

Shawn

[defected07]

Is it possible for the NIC to kill a router? lol.  Because I also have a BIOSTAR MOBO, with a Realtek RTL8111C NIC.

I didn't notice my server necessarily dying, but my APE would die, and then I think I tried to send files again, and the speeds were like 1 -2 MB/s.  I may not have restarted the server after this.

[cyrnel]

This same box, Slackware 13.1 installed and updated:
Copies from a Win7 system to a simple unprotected samba share stabilize at ~85MB/s according to Explorer. This is with kernel 2.6.33.4, r8169 module 2.3LK-NAPI. That seems to duplicate reports of better experience with this nic using the latest kernel & driver. No idea yet how it'll build/work against 5.06a's kernel.

[jaybee]

Interesting thread. I am sure my proposed motherboard for myunraid server uses a similar NIC. I will check the model and post back. Is it not recommended to run an Intel Pro anyway for best speeds with unraid boxes? Are they pricey? I take it they are PCI-e now? EDIT: Just had a quick look on scan.co.uk and they have an Intel Pro PCI for £20 and a PCI-e dual port for £120. I take it the PCI gigabit intel pro is still ok to use and no reason to get the PCI-e dual port one for a lot more money? (unless you need dual port which i don't)

[cyrnel]

They do get the most attention. They've pretty much been the standard since taking over from 3C5 cards, what, 20yrs ago.

There's also a PCIE single-port card for about the same price as the PCI, but PCI can handle a single Gb port so long as nothing else is fighting for attention.

[defected07]

So is that potentially the fix? To get a PCI(E) NIC card? Would Intel work with an AMD mobo, or does it require an Intel chipset?

Ultimately, I guess we should wait to see if they can update the NIC drivers in unRAID.  Or if it's possible for us to do it manually.

[Whaler_99]

An Intel nic will work fine in an AMD chipset... Not like it will try and recompile the BIOS.
The HP card I am using is a Broadcom chipset.

Shawn