RealTek LAN issues anyone got any ideas?

Dravinian · July 26, 2020

My Realtek Gaming GbE Family Controller is absolute garbage at the moment.

Problem:

Occasionally, and randomly, it will just stop working. I will have no internal network or external internet. Looking at the details it will say "Not assigned an IP address". I had it set to static. I thought this might be causing a problem, so I let DHCP handle the assigning. Didn't make a difference.

Solutions tried:

Diagnosing the issue with windows results in a reset of the adapter, which does not fix the issue.

If you continue to try and get it to work through properties, disable / enable or any attempts to try things that might remedy the problem, it will simply not recognise that there is an ethernet cable plugged in - you will receive the message - ethernet cable is not correctly plugged into the port.

Restarting will fix the issue - only if you leave it off for a bit and let it essentially 'cold reboot'.

I have updated the drivers, I removed the drivers entirely and reinstalled the latest drivers. No effect. It continues to randomly stop working, and then only work again after a cold reboot.

I have changed the ethernet cable itself, a new cable, same problem persists.

I thought it might be heat related as it is so close to the VRM, but under a 100% load (right now doing a Handbrake) with the fan curve I have, the MB is 37c, CPU 68c this should not effect LAN connectivity and it randomly breaks in the middle of the night, when the system is doing work that takes up 1-2% CPU load.

Anyone have any other ideas to try and fix this garbage?

Kilrah · July 26, 2020

Tried another network cable / other PC on that cable?

Try booting a linux USB key in live mode and see if the network works right. If it doesn't the network controller on the mobo is likely dying.

Master Disaster · July 26, 2020

$15 from Amazon

RealTek networking gear is trash. Just replace it with an external card, disable it in BIOS and forget it exists.

Dravinian · July 26, 2020

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

$15 from Amazon

RealTek networking gear is trash. Just replace it with an external card, disable it in BIOS and forget it exists.

Yeah, I have a GPU on a riser card sitting nice showing off its RGB and fans, but it does obscure all of the other PCIe slots, even if I moved the riser itself down a slot, the card would make it impossible to fit anything.

I could buy another riser cable and then loop it under and around...I could move the GPU to the front and have the network card behind it - hopefully wouldn't impact on thermals too much.

Was just hoping that this could be avoided and I could fix this piece of garbage.

2 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Tried another network cable / other PC on that cable?

Try booting a linux USB key in live mode and see if the network works right. If it doesn't the network controller on the mobo is likely dying.

Yeah there is nothing wrong with the cable, I did mention in my 'solutions' that I had bought a new cable just to test it, but I never thought it was the cable to be honest.

I have another install of Win 10 on a separate disk (don't ask) I suppose I could try that, and see if it breaks.

The problem is, it has been on all day, no problem. It randomly turned itself off this morning at 8am when I was asleep. It isn't like it breaks to a schedule, so it is hard to measure if it breaks on a different OS, as I would have to live on that OS for at least a couple of days just to see if it broke, and even then, it can go days on this OS without breaking. It would be tough to check I think.

If I knew what broke it, and could replicate it every time, I know overloading it does on some occasions break it, so I could attempt to just copy/paste a couple of TB of information back and forth on the other install see if it ever breaks. I suppose I should try that at least. Though the idea of buying a new network card is actually more appealing as it takes less time and doesn't seem an expensive solution.

Kilrah · July 26, 2020

46 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

Yeah, I have a GPU on a riser card sitting nice showing off its RGB and fans, but it does obscure all of the other PCIe slots, even if I moved the riser itself down a slot, the card would make it impossible to fit anything.

Use a USB one then.