Warning about RealTek adapters - again!

[JohnSchnee]

When you read the thread you will find that it is an incompatibility of Realtek 8126 / 8127 devices with X570 chipsets that cannot be healed by drivers, since the device is not even detected. It is a hardware incompatibility.

I read *you* assuming it is an Hardware issue, but from the problems you describe, its a 100% not general hardware compability issue.

On your own article on Computerbase you self write "Daraus ergab sich der Verdacht, dass die über den X570-Chipsatz angebundenen PCIe-4.0-Slots instabil arbeiten."

So you were now talking about unstable PCIe Lanes on your Board, so tell me, is it a card issue, a board issue or even a specific Problem with your board?

I just don't understand single users detecting something, and assume this problem affects the whole Chipset, while only a single Board was used for testing.

It's just not representative, to test one board with one/two cards, and then warn about the card when it's a chipset Issue, or even just one bad PCB...

Best example is my friend with a RTL8127 on a Gigabyte X570 Board without any issues for 3 months now. (Yuanley Card from Amazon)

Another factor: With PCIe 4.0 bad routing of the PCIe traces on the card or on the mainboad or even bad EMI can cause training issues.

But as I said I have various evidence that a missing card at boot time can but not always be caused by bad drivers.

My personal and not verified theory is, that the OS failes to communicate power states, leaving the IC in a soft-bricked state.

So yes, I read the thread and I appreciate the time you put in it, but no, I'm not convinced it's a general X570 or hardware issue.

You are talking about Windows but the most issues you will see on this Forum are on the OPNsense/FreeBSD side so I guess most people don't use them for their Clients or don't use Windows at all ;)

In this thread it was about Windows.. And drivers are somehow important regardless of the OS.

All I wanted to point out that include the network drivers in the private patch cycles or troubleshooting, can be worth, but it will not fix every problem.

Best regards!

[meyergru]

Would you admit that it cannot be the OS drivers when the card is not detected in the BIOS before the OS even boots (which was the case)?

The cards definitely sometimes were not detected on the PCIe bus, which I also told in the Computerbase thread. Also, I linked several other reports about those instabilities here: https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threads/erfahrungsbericht-realtek-rtl8126-rtl8127-instabilitaeten-auf-x570-pcie-4-0.2265596/post-31314530

Also, I noticed corrupted data, which destroyed my Windows installation a few times and even became noticeable as data errors on a restore, so I definitely can say there was a hardware problem. Had it been on the ethernet wire, it would have got detected and corrected, but there is no such correction on the PCIe bus.

Thus, I know for a fact that there were signaling problems between my X570 mainboard and two different specimens of modern Realtek adapters (one 8126 and one 8127). There are reports of other people experiencing similar results, which is not to say that it cannot be the mainboard that was at fault. Yet, these problems were not present with any other brand NIC that I tried.

Potentially, there are EMI problem with higher PCIe rates, but whatever the case, the drivers played no role in this.

[JohnSchnee]

Hi,

I don't want to argue, but from what I experienced with the Docks and the USB Ethernet, I would not say a 100% that its not the driver.

As I mentioned, the docks needed a full powercycle to revocer the LAN-Port. It went away with new drivers. I never had this kind of issue with PCIe Cards.

It may be worth to name your specific card vendor, to sort out that this specific vendor has some quality issues at a PCB Level.

Best example for this is with the Broadcom 5720 Card - look at the Parts Count of both PCBs, one is as double as expensive with the same Chipset as the other.

If the cheapo card had problems, then it would be likely due to omitting components and not the BCM-Chip beeing just a bad Chip.