Hi,
hardware:
Intel N5105 box, 4 × Intel i226‑V (igc0–igc3)
NVM firmware: V2.32‑0 on all ports
OPNsense 26.1.4
LAN: UniFi Switch Lite 8 PoE (USW‑Lite‑8‑PoE), LAN on igc1
WAN: PPPoE Vodafone (Italy) on igc3 (with VLAN)
Since updating the i226 NVM to 2.32 and running 26.1.4 I'm seeing strange behaviour on every reboot:
If WAN (igc3) and LAN (igc1 → UniFi) are connected, during boot both ports show only amber on the switch and the firewall is unreachable from LAN.
In this situation the box often seems to hang (no red status LED blinking on the chassis, no visible console progress, only amber link, no traffic) and I have to hard power‑cycle it.
If I disconnect WAN and LAN and connect an HDMI monitor, the system boots normally, the red status LED starts blinking and OPNsense comes up without issues.
Once it has booted successfully, if I reconnect WAN and LAN, everything works as expected.
Once the system is up:
Internet and LAN are stable, full speed, no drops.
dmesg shows all 4 i226‑V with EEPROM V2.32-0 and only some link state changed to UP/DOWN messages during early boot, but no errors.
ifconfig shows igc1 and igc3 as 1000baseT full-duplex, status: active.
/var/log/boot.log is clean (interfaces, VLAN, PPPoE, WireGuard, DNS, etc. all configure fine).
BIOS:
ASPM and L1 Substate for all PCIe Root Ports are already Disabled.
I also set DMI Link ASPM Control from Auto to Disabled, but the behaviour on reboot did not change.
Questions:
Is this "long amber / sometimes hanging during boot" behaviour expected with i226 + NVM 2.32 + OPNsense 26.1.4, or does it indicate a problem?
Are there any additional recommended BIOS settings (ASPM, EEE, PCIe power saving) for i226 on OPNsense to avoid this kind of boot/link issue?
Should I keep the default igc settings (no tunables), or is there a minimal recommended set for this platform?
I can provide full dmesg, boot.log and additional logs if needed.
Thanks!