Is the Intel I225-V Ethernet chip still a buggy piece of...

[freeagent]

I just pay for gigabit service, I get pretty close to it..

 

[R-T-B]

Gotta link?

They are on stepping B3 (third respin of the chip). The reasons have been well covered in the media. It's the known chip eratta. Revision B3 is good, anything before that is... questionable at best.

 

[trparky]

Luckily I was able to find a board with a Realtek chip on it as versus an Intel chip for my recent build.

 

[Space Lynx]

Hi,
Yeah my speed is listed as 1200mbps don't believe the nic is able to do that but this is x299 1219v
View attachment 278477

Have to also figure speed is also limited by where ever your downloading from.

I have 1200 down as well, and I get

 

[Bill_Bright]

They are on stepping B3 (third respin of the chip). The reasons have been well covered in the media. It's the known chip eratta. Revision B3 is good, anything before that is... questionable at best.

My point was, even if 100% of a specific product, or product revision are affected with a specific bug, that does not mean 100% of the users of that product are or will be affected by that bug.

In fact, typically, when there is a bug in products that make it past in-house testing and get distributed out into the market, that bug usually affects only a small handful of users in very uncommon scenarios and circumstances.

Surely, especially for the integrated devices, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and the other big players did in-house testing on their boards too before releasing them to the market. "IF" this bug affected 100% or even 10% of their boards, they would have stopped production and fixed the issue.

 

[Dr. Dro]

The hardware reset bug is specific to the i225 (and seems now the 226 series), the i211, 217 and 218-V or -LM are completely fine.

The higher the data rate the higher are the chances the thing will completely crash. It's seemingly a controller design fault, as even after driver, firmware and hardware revisions the issue still seems to occur every now and then.

My general advice is if you have v1 or v2 hardware and need link stability limit it to Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) mode and go no higher, gigabit is usually fine but will occasionally lock up on i225-V B2 from my experience. 2.5GbE will cause the earlier revision chips to crash quite often.

My point was, even if 100% of a specific product, or product revision are affected with a specific bug, that does not mean 100% of the users of that product are or will be affected by that bug.

In fact, typically, when there is a bug in products that make it past in-house testing and get distributed out into the market, that bug usually affects only a small handful of users in very uncommon scenarios and circumstances.

Surely, especially for the integrated devices, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and the other big players did in-house testing on their boards too before releasing them to the market. "IF" this bug affected 100% or even 10% of their boards, they would have stopped production and fixed the issue.

I'd argue most people don't complain much because they are unaware of the nature of the connection problem and will usually blame their router or something else, in addition to that it requires gigabit or 2.5GbE network (and mostly the latter) to truly manifest itself and that's still a very low amount of market share.

Routers that support only 100Mbps FE are still hilariously common and in widespread use for most places where residential internet access doesn't exceed 100Mb downstream which is most of the world really...

 

[Bill_Bright]

I'd argue most people don't complain much because they are unaware of the nature of the connection problem and will usually blame their router or something else, in addition to that it requires gigabit or 2.5GbE network (and mostly the latter) to truly manifest itself and that's still a very low amount of market share.

You very much just agreed with me. For many, the problem does not affect them. So they are unaware of any bug. And that's fine.

As far as blaming the router - at first, sure - maybe - until they try another router and still have the same problem.

Routers that support only 100Mbps FE are still hilariously common and in widespread use for most places where residential internet access doesn't exceed 100Mb downstream which is most of the world really...

"Hilariously common and in widespread use...most of the world"? Nah! I am sure there are still many out there, no doubt. But routers, switches and NICs that support 1000Mbps (1Gbps) have been the standard for what? 15 years or longer?

I just looked at Newegg, for example, and the filter options on the left only show 10/100/1000Mbps.

Remember, CAT-5e replaced CAT-5 as the standard way back in 2001. And 5e supports up to 1Gbps.

However, I will agree that - at least until recently - most home broadband service maxed out below 100Mbps. But even then, users' local networks (everything on their side of the gateway device - typically the modem) could support much faster speeds.

But that's all OT at this point.

 

[stimpy88]

Does anyone here have a link to where you can download firmware updates for the Intel made pcie card with the I225-t1 chip on it? I simply cannot find it anywhere!

 

[nexxusty]

Does anyone here have a link to where you can download firmware updates for the Intel made pcie card with the I225-t1 chip on it? I simply cannot find it anywhere!

Your best bet is Station Drivers.

They're your best bet for any driver or firmware actually.

 

[LabRat 891]

This thread has destroyed my regrets of not getting an X570 board w/ the I225-V instead of Realtek.

I've had 'similarly symptom'd' problems in years-gone-by on Realtek NICs. I guess 'holding out for (affordable) 10GbE' wasn't the worst choice, I'm just gonna be waiting even longer.

 

[stimpy88]

Your best bet is Station Drivers.

They're your best bet for any driver or firmware actually.

That site is a mess now they changed it, and nope, no firmware downloads...

Update: Their firmware page is back, but these are NVM images for inserting into a motherboard BIOS.

My card is an Intel built PCIe card, and I have searched everywhere and simply cannot find a firmware download for it anywhere.

 

[nexxusty]

You very much just agreed with me. For many, the problem does not affect them. So they are unaware of any bug. And that's fine.



As far as blaming the router - at first, sure - maybe - until they try another router and still have the same problem.





"Hilariously common and in widespread use...most of the world"? Nah! I am sure there are still many out there, no doubt. But routers, switches and NICs that support 1000Mbps (1Gbps) have been the standard for what? 15 years or longer?



I just looked at Newegg, for example, and the filter options on the left only show 10/100/1000Mbps.



Remember, CAT-5e replaced CAT-5 as the standard way back in 2001. And 5e supports up to 1Gbps.



However, I will agree that - at least until recently - most home broadband service maxed out below 100Mbps. But even then, users' local networks (everything on their side of the gateway device - typically the modem) could support much faster speeds.



But that's all OT at this point.

That site is a mess now they changed it, and nope, no firmware downloads...

Ugh, yeah its a bit annoying now.

No one paying for servers and constantly leeching will do that though.

 

[thewan]

I decided on a whim to test the CAT6 cable that I wired up my whole home with a good few years back, though I only tested between my room PC and the router, to double check if its indeed the Intel 2.5 refusing to connect at 2.5G, or if its a problem with the ethernet cable.

So i bought a ~$10 generic Realtek USB Type-C 2.5G Ethernet dongle from China last week and it just arrived. Lo and behold, it instantly connects at 2.5G. No weird waiting period for negotiation.
Unlike the Intel, which one has to wait a bit for negotiation even when connected to Gigabit port on my router, and does it for a longer period when trying to connect the 2.5G port on the same router. Sometimes after waiting a long time while trying to connect to the 2.5G port, it refuses to connect, it connects at Gigbabit speeds, or it connects at 100Mb speeds. How infuriating.

Dear people, stop buying boards with Intel. Dear Mobo makers, make a stand and stop using Intel Ethernet chips. Send them a message to buck up.

 

[Ownedtbh]

started prime95 and my windows just disconnected my i225, but on the backside of the mainboard it still displays a link and also i had really weird cpu usages during the stresstest(jumping from 20-90% up and down until it disconnected, then it was over 95% all the time)

 

[PhoenixTank]

It *should* have all been fixed with the few hardware steppings early on (years ago now), but people still don't like it. Hard to tell whether that's just a stubborn reputation that's hard to shake off, or actual issues.

The problem is that most people don't realize is that the chip is only half the equation - the board vendor's design and implementation of the NIC is just as if not more important.

Case in point, realtek 2.5Gbe (unlike realtek 1Gbe) is generally regarded as a reliable choice, but Gigabyte has had a running reputation for ruining it on various late AM4 (B550) boards with it and never really fixing it. In addition to also ruining AX200 Wifi and BT functions on those boards. It's a good thing that my B550I Aorus AX is in my portable PC and always on Wifi (the AX200 is still excellent), because on wired the RTL8125 far underperforms compared to the various other RTL8125 boards I have (B550M TUF, B550 Strix-I, B550 Unify-X).

The Aorus also had the AX200 bluetooth disappearing act, but that was largely fixed by AGESA 1200. The RTL8125, not so much

Hi tabascosauz,

Could you please expand a little on how the 2.5Gbe adapters perform on the B550I Aorus and B550-I Strix in your experience? I'm stuck choosing between the two boards for a SFF build and it needs reliable 2.5Gbe (or close in speed) and of course, this is ITX so I can't just throw another NIC in a PCIe slot. WiFi isn't suitable.

I've been reading for a few days now that the I225-V was a disaster, and unfortunately based on this thread still seems to be? If the Realtek in all B550i Aorus boards is bad too I don't know what I'll do. I'm unsure if they updated the RTL chip at all but are you aware which revision of the motherboard you have/had? 1.0/1.1/1.2?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice you can offer.

 

[tabascosauz]

Hi tabascosauz,

Could you please expand a little on how the 2.5Gbe adapters perform on the B550I Aorus and B550-I Strix in your experience? I'm stuck choosing between the two boards for a SFF build and it needs reliable 2.5Gbe (or close in speed) and of course, this is ITX so I can't just throw another NIC in a PCIe slot. WiFi isn't suitable.

I've been reading for a few days now that the I225-V was a disaster, and unfortunately based on this thread still seems to be? If the Realtek in all B550i Aorus boards is bad too I don't know what I'll do. I'm unsure if they updated the RTL chip at all but are you aware which revision of the motherboard you have/had? 1.0/1.1/1.2?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice you can offer.

I don't usually use ethernet on either of these boards, only AX200, but when plugged in the Aorus regularly underperforms in throughput compared to i211 and regular RTL8125. Not enough testing with the Strix's i225.

It's not the end of the world though and it is a popular board. There exists a rev1.1 but I have not seen it anywhere and the board is now EOL. I'd still take it over the Strix any day.

No 2.5Gbe service here, so you'll just have to test it out yourself.

 

[PhoenixTank]

I don't usually use ethernet on either of these boards, only AX200, but when plugged in the Aorus regularly underperforms in throughput compared to i211 and regular RTL8125. Not enough testing with the Strix's i225.

It's not the end of the world though and it is a popular board. There exists a rev1.1 but I have not seen it anywhere and the board is now EOL. I'd still take it over the Strix any day.

No 2.5Gbe service here, so you'll just have to test it out yourself.

So strange that the Aorus' RTL bottles the connection like that, and depressingly I've read similar things about the I225-V. I know there are some weird incompatibilities between gigabit and 2.5 so perhaps that is what is going on if you're not using a 2.5 gigabit switch.

Regarding EOL: yes it has definitely gotten substantially harder to find these boards and there weren't many B550 ITX boards to start with.

Thank you for time. Very much appreciate it!

 

[tabascosauz]

So strange that the Aorus' RTL bottles the connection like that, and depressingly I've read similar things about the I225-V. I know there are some weird incompatibilities between gigabit and 2.5 so perhaps that is what is going on if you're not using a 2.5 gigabit switch.

Regarding EOL: yes it has definitely gotten substantially harder to find these boards and there weren't many B550 ITX boards to start with.

Thank you for time. Very much appreciate it!

It's not because it's the Aorus board, it's because it's not the normal RTL8125 but the -BG Dragon gaming variant. The Dragon is not regarded very favourably. I've had a number of regular 8125s and they've all been fine.

It's not great but I don't know about being a deal-breaker. There are quite a few problems with the Strix that can be, however, which is why it's relegated to another PC with a 4650G now while the Aorus is still in my media PC.

Best of luck with whichever option you go with.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Just have to ask a question of those with intel nic issues
How many of you oc blk

 

[PhoenixTank]

It's not because it's the Aorus board, it's because it's not the normal RTL8125 but the -BG Dragon gaming variant. The Dragon is not regarded very favourably. I've had a number of regular 8125s and they've all been fine.

It's not great but I don't know about being a deal-breaker. There are quite a few problems with the Strix that can be, however, which is why it's relegated to another PC with a 4650G now while the Aorus is still in my media PC.

Best of luck with whichever option you go with.

Oh I see - I'd skipped over that part from the Realtek BG product page. Presumably still subpar even without the Realtek dragon/bandwidth control software installed? Crazy that they'd spend time and money to make a worse product.

Might end up with a cheap Strix, but if that doesn't work well pass tests I'll return and grab an Aorus (reasonably easy to find here still)
Thanks again!

 

[Kodehawa]

I've had no issue with it. I get full speed on it, and no connection dropouts. Though it is a 600/600 connection, not 1000/1000.

I've heard there's multiple revisions, though. Is there even a way to check which one I've got?

 

[Dr. Dro]

I've had no issue with it. I get full speed on it, and no connection dropouts. Though it is a 600/600 connection, not 1000/1000.

I've heard there's multiple revisions, though. Is there even a way to check which one I've got?

Yes, device manager, hardware revision, same place you get the PCI ID. A 600/600 WAN is probably connected to a 1GbE LAN, it's rarer for the issue to manifest on Gigabit networks.