Question PCIE ethernet fails and takes down on-board ethernet

[DMan16]

Hello all!
I've recently built a home server with parts I barely managed to find (2nd hand stuff here is almost as expensive as new parts, which are already overpriced...)
The motherboard I'm using is Arktek ZX-H81 - for the most part it's more than enough for what I need (only media streaming), but the "problem" is that the ethernet port is 100 Mbps.
So, instead of buying a new mobo (the prices start from ~110 USD!) I decided to buy a 1Gbps PCIE ethernet for ~10 USD - the Cudy PE10.
I'm running Ubuntu Server (24.04), so I installed the Realtek r8168 driver as instructed, but the Cudy didn't work. Not only that, but the on-board ethernet stopped working too!

After much testing, which included disabling the preinstalled r8169 driver with modprobe's blacklist, I couldn't get the Cudy working, nor did I manage to get the on-board ethernet up when it's connected along with it.
The weird part is that running lspci didn't list the Cudy no matter what,

So here I am, pleading for a faster connection - please help me break out of 100 Mbps hell!

If anyone has any idea how to solve this, please let me know.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Viking2121]

According to the specs, the onboard ethernet is gigabit. You might have to go into the properties set the negotiation from auto and manually set to 1000, though shouldn't have to, Or you are using a older or defective ethernet cable.

Im not Linux expert, so maybe its a driver issue with Ubuntu, If you got another drive laying around, I'd install windows or some other distro just to see if you get gigabit working.

Also I'd go for a Intel Nic if you plan to try a different NIC, more reliable, drivers are normally baked into most OS's, and usually just works.

Good Luck!

 

[BFG-9000]

Realtek gigabit is not so good for Linux, so as suggested it would've been better to get an Intel card using e1000 driver. The card you bought may actually have the same gigabit chip as the motherboard NIC.

Both the r8169 and r8168 drivers should work with either NIC. The difference is the r8169 driver is in-kernel and known to not be very reliable long-term with performance issues, while the r8168 driver is out-of-tree and more reliable but still has occasional problems (as in it doesn't come up sometimes unless cold booted). Having multiple Realtek cards installed in Linux can actually cause a conflict and make one card go offline, so uninstall or disable one in the BIOS. The biggest problem is the r8168 driver does not appear to be compatible with kernel 6.5 or later unless it's the very latest v8.053.00, and correct operation with that in kernel 6.8 of Ubuntu 24.04 is unknown.

Note blacklisting the r8169 driver means every time you update the kernel your internet connection will fail until you can install the r8168 driver again, so ordinarily you would just keep the installation files handy, but if it doesn't work anyway...

 

[DMan16]

According to the specs, the onboard ethernet is gigabit. You might have to go into the properties set the negotiation from auto and manually set to 1000, though shouldn't have to, Or you are using a older or defective ethernet cable.

Im not Linux expert, so maybe its a driver issue with Ubuntu, If you got another drive laying around, I'd install windows or some other distro just to see if you get gigabit working.

Also I'd go for a Intel Nic if you plan to try a different NIC, more reliable, drivers are normally baked into most OS's, and usually just works.

Good Luck!

I checked the official site as well and it says that the NIC is either 100 or 1000 Mbps, I have the 100...
And unfortunately, there Intel cards are WAY too expensive here.

Realtek gigabit is not so good for Linux, so as suggested it would've been better to get an Intel card using e1000 driver. The card you bought may actually have the same gigabit chip as the motherboard NIC.

Both the r8169 and r8168 drivers should work with either NIC. The difference is the r8169 driver is in-kernel and known to not be very reliable long-term with performance issues, while the r8168 driver is out-of-tree and more reliable but still has occasional problems (as in it doesn't come up sometimes unless cold booted). Having multiple Realtek cards installed in Linux can actually cause a conflict and make one card go offline, so uninstall or disable one in the BIOS. The biggest problem is the r8168 driver does not appear to be compatible with kernel 6.5 or later unless it's the very latest v8.053.00, and correct operation with that in kernel 6.8 of Ubuntu 24.04 is unknown.

Note blacklisting the r8169 driver means every time you update the kernel your internet connection will fail until you can install the r8168 driver again, so ordinarily you would just keep the installation files handy, but if it doesn't work anyway...

I downgraded the kernel to 6.1 (needed to for other reasons), but still the same issue.
I left the original r8169 driver on (removed r8168) and disabled the on-board ethernet via the bios, but no luck there either.

Any other ideas?

 

[js2]

Try Chocolatey for possible drivers. But it may be you need to trawl through the Arktek site for Ubuntu drivers.

But you could install Android on it, and use Plex instead. Or Openwrt at worst.