Intel X540-T2 dual NIC not autonegotiating speeds correctly

[dhawk312]

Hello. I just upgraded to 3Gbps fiber service. My WAN is getting 3Gbps data throughput but my LAN is stuck at 1Gbps. Is there a way to fix this so my LAN is also getting max speed across my network? All of my switches are 2.5Gbps and my ethernet cables are CAT7. NIC is a Intel X540-T2 dual 10Gbps. Opnsense is fully updated to 25.1.9. Running on a baremetal system, not virtualized. Here is the ifconfig output for this card. How can I get ix0 and ix1 to both autonegotiate to 10Gbase-T?

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root@OPNsense:~ # ifconfig
ix0: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 9000
        description: LAN (lan)
        options=4803828<VLAN_MTU,JUMBO_MTU,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether 1a:4b:24:a0:78:58
        inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex,rxpause,txpause>)
        status: active
        nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
ix1: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 9000
        description: WAN (wan)
        options=4803828<VLAN_MTU,JUMBO_MTU,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether 1a:4b:24:a0:78:59
        inet XXX netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast YYY
        media: Ethernet autoselect (10Gbase-T <full-duplex,rxpause>)
        status: active
        nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>


[Patrick M. Hausen]

If your switch is 2.5G the card cannot run at 10G. You need a switch with at least one 10G interface or a card that supports 2.5G. Which this one apparently does not, so 1G is the fastest both switch and card support.

The speed must always be the same at both ends.

[Stormscape]

You'll need to buy an X550-T2 if you want to stick with Intel and have a NIC that supports 2.5 gig. 2.5 is a much newer standard than 10 gig, despite what the speeds may suggest, and as such isn't supported on older NICs like the X540-T2, which launched in early 2012.

[pfry]

You'll need to buy an X550-T2 [...]

I believe the X550 always supported multi-gig... whereas the early X710s did not. I tend to buy NOS/surplus, so I occasionally run across an old one. Something to watch out for.

I'd stay away from the new E610 unless one falls into your lap - it seems to offer no process/power improvement over the X550. It does support PCI-e v4, so it might be worthwhile if you have slot limits (unlikely at 2.5Gb).

[meyergru]

The X550 variant is way more expensive that the X540, because the latter can be had as cheap China knockoffs. If your switch supports 2.5 Gbit/s only, you can as well buy an Intel I226V based card, which works fine with OpnSense.