[SOLVED] Intel I225-V Faulty?

[ClemsonFanKyle]

So I was so happy to upgrade my PC that I originally built in 2014. However, I feel like I have been shafted by ASUS and Intel, respectively.

I just bought a ASUS Prime Z490-A motherboard with the i7 10700K.

After doing some research, I feel like I have fallen into the trap that everyone else has. A faulty NIC that comes with most of the Z490 motherboards. The Intel I225-V NIC.

My speeds are locked at 100Mbps. I have tried everything that I have seen on the internet, to no avail. I am getting really depressed. Can someone confirm if this is still a case of a faulty NIC unit or not?

 

[Flamebrander]

Your ethernet port may only be set to 100mbps. To check this, open up device manager (search it up in the Windows search bar) and go to network adapters. After, click driver and do an update. Sometimes, it might just be outdated. Afterwards, go to advanced and click on "Gigabit Master Slave Mode" and set it to force master mode. This should force it to its fastest speeds.

On the side, how did you test your speeds? There are a lot of different factors into internet speeds, such as server limit. If you were just downloading something, then the server probably has a bandwidth cap on how much data is allocated to each user. If you used a wifi test, then you might not have a fast service provider. What are you paying for? Maybe your service plan is capped at 100mbps download speed, in which that case you wouldn't be able to go any faster unless you bought a faster one.

 

[bill001g]

This is the risk of chasing new technology. There were article about defective hardware but if I remember correctly it was mostly a issue trying to run it at 2.5g if you force it to 1gbit it runs fine. When it is a hardware issue and ethernet is almost 100% done in hardware you can not fix bad chips. Not sure I never saw the need of 2.5g. If you actually need faster you buy 10g since the cost of the port is tiny compared to everything else you need to actually run really fast data networks.

The most common cause of 100mbps is a bad cable

 

[ClemsonFanKyle]

This is the risk of chasing new technology. There were article about defective hardware but if I remember correctly it was mostly a issue trying to run it at 2.5g if you force it to 1gbit it runs fine. When it is a hardware issue and ethernet is almost 100% done in hardware you can not fix bad chips. Not sure I never saw the need of 2.5g. If you actually need faster you buy 10g since the cost of the port is tiny compared to everything else you need to actually run really fast data networks.

The most common cause of 100mbps is a bad cable

How do I force it down to 1gbs? I changed the Speed & Duplex down to 1gbs but I don't get an internet connection at all.

 

[bill001g]

I never read the details only what I remember from almost a year ago. Generally if you force the speed to 1gbit and it doesn't work that also points to a bad cable. A cable is fairly inexpensive to try and they are really strange when they go bad, they can work on some machines but not others. Be sure you do not have fake cable. It must be pure copper (no cca) with wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cables). From what I have read the 2.5g stuff is much more sensitive to these fake cables.

Now sometime setting the speed on one end and the other on auto the port will not come up. You really need to force both ends but you seldom can set the speed on the router/switch. It most the time works. Maybe the 2.5g ports work different. I have only used the common 10/100/1000 and 10g ports.

 

[ClemsonFanKyle]

I never read the details only what I remember from almost a year ago. Generally if you force the speed to 1gbit and it doesn't work that also points to a bad cable. A cable is fairly inexpensive to try and they are really strange when they go bad, they can work on some machines but not others. Be sure you do not have fake cable. It must be pure copper (no cca) with wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cables). From what I have read the 2.5g stuff is much more sensitive to these fake cables.

Now sometime setting the speed on one end and the other on auto the port will not come up. You really need to force both ends but you seldom can set the speed on the router/switch. It most the time works. Maybe the 2.5g ports work different. I have only used the common 10/100/1000 and 10g ports.

Before I rage and take apart this computer again, I’ll fiddle around with my router to see if it works. I have already tried forcing it to 1gig on the device manager, updated all the drivers, bios, etc. The cable also works perfectly fine and gives me my 300mbps we pay for and some.
For reference, the I225-V is locking itself at 100mbps download and 4mbps upload.

 

[ClemsonFanKyle]

I never read the details only what I remember from almost a year ago. Generally if you force the speed to 1gbit and it doesn't work that also points to a bad cable. A cable is fairly inexpensive to try and they are really strange when they go bad, they can work on some machines but not others. Be sure you do not have fake cable. It must be pure copper (no cca) with wire size 22-24 (no flat or thin cables). From what I have read the 2.5g stuff is much more sensitive to these fake cables.

Now sometime setting the speed on one end and the other on auto the port will not come up. You really need to force both ends but you seldom can set the speed on the router/switch. It most the time works. Maybe the 2.5g ports work different. I have only used the common 10/100/1000 and 10g ports.

Apparently I am directly wired into the modem.

 

[ClemsonFanKyle]

Your ethernet port may only be set to 100mbps. To check this, open up device manager (search it up in the Windows search bar) and go to network adapters. After, click driver and do an update. Sometimes, it might just be outdated. Afterwards, go to advanced and click on "Gigabit Master Slave Mode" and set it to force master mode. This should force it to its fastest speeds.

On the side, how did you test your speeds? There are a lot of different factors into internet speeds, such as server limit. If you were just downloading something, then the server probably has a bandwidth cap on how much data is allocated to each user. If you used a wifi test, then you might not have a fast service provider. What are you paying for? Maybe your service plan is capped at 100mbps download speed, in which that case you wouldn't be able to go any faster unless you bought a faster one.

I’ll have to find that gigabit master slave mode and see if it works. Also, I tested it on google speed test, and the Ookla speed test.
I am also directly connected into our modem, and we get 300up and 300mbps down. It is a fibre connection to our house.

 

[ClemsonFanKyle]

Just to let @bill001g and @Flamebrander know, I was able to fix part of the issue by changing the Gigabit Master Slave Mode, and I ended up plugging my ethernet directly into the modem instead of the Orbi we have. This got my download speeds up to 350+ download, but I am still stuck with 30 upload. We pay for 300 down and 300 up for our fiber internet. Do you all know of any solutions to fix the upload speeds? I have the Receive and Transmit Buffers both set to 1024.

 

[bill001g]

The upload speed likely is something other than your pc. If the cable run 1gbit down it runs 1gbit up. It is full duplex and can run both...if it was a wifi device you would claim it was a 2gbit cable. The buffers make little difference, you should not be buffering data anyway. Maybe a small buffer in the router because your machine is sending at 1gbit and the router at max can upload 300mbps so the data is temporarily stored. The router actually tends to have too large a buffer and you can get bufferbloat but it avoid traffic being dropped.

This is where trying another PC would be helpful. There might be some setting in your PC but there are many things so you want to confirm before you start to dig. If you want to test your PC and you have a second pc plug them both into the router or a switch and use a old program called iperf. You should get 900+mbps in both directions. This does a good job of testing the cables/drivers/interface etc without things like memory/cpu/disk having much impact.

 

[ClemsonFanKyle]

The upload speed likely is something other than your pc. If the cable run 1gbit down it runs 1gbit up. It is full duplex and can run both...if it was a wifi device you would claim it was a 2gbit cable. The buffers make little difference, you should not be buffering data anyway. Maybe a small buffer in the router because your machine is sending at 1gbit and the router at max can upload 300mbps so the data is temporarily stored. The router actually tends to have too large a buffer and you can get bufferbloat but it avoid traffic being dropped.

This is where trying another PC would be helpful. There might be some setting in your PC but there are many things so you want to confirm before you start to dig. If you want to test your PC and you have a second pc plug them both into the router or a switch and use a old program called iperf. You should get 900+mbps in both directions. This does a good job of testing the cables/drivers/interface etc without things like memory/cpu/disk having much impact.

Alright I will check it on my laptop when I get a chance. Finally got my computer operational, and I have work due at midnight tonight. Gotta get on it 😆

If it makes any difference, my room/office is on the far side of the house, and I can pull up Ookla speed test on my phone and over WiFi I get 220 down, with 220 upload. I'll check my laptop speeds when it is plugged into the same cable that my computer is running on in a little bit. The cable is also a Cat6.

If I am not mistaken, my old MSI Z97 Gaming 7 motherboard ran at 300+ download and 300+ upload.

 

[bill001g]

Ethernet speeds are actually very simple. it is detecting resistance and voltages to figure this out. In this case I guess it could be the port since they say there are issues about hardware but that is extremely rare in general. Cable failure are very common and you get all kinds of strangeness where they work on some machines but not others and they randomly work on some ports and not on others. It only takes the cable to be very slightly out of spec

 

[ClemsonFanKyle]

Ethernet speeds are actually very simple. it is detecting resistance and voltages to figure this out. In this case I guess it could be the port since they say there are issues about hardware but that is extremely rare in general. Cable failure are very common and you get all kinds of strangeness where they work on some machines but not others and they randomly work on some ports and not on others. It only takes the cable to be very slightly out of spec

I tried the same cable on my laptop, and got the speeds I was expecting. Above 300 download and above 300 upload. Same cable.

I am expecting a call from Asus's Network Engineer in the next day or so, so I hope that goes well.