Intel 540 Dropping Connection - Wiring or TSO?

[ere109]

This is as much theoretical mumbling as anything, so feel free to offer opinions or not. Last summer I added Cat6 UTP cable (unshielded twisted pair) all around my house - about 12 runs that all come out of the same 4x4" box in my closet. I figured this would be fine for 10/100/1000 connections, and it has been. But my FN machine is about 50 feet of cable downline, and has an Intel 540 card, which is only capable of 1gb or 10gbps.
When I turn the machine on, it takes between 20 and 60 minutes for the lights to come up on a Netgear 10G switch. I'd be ok with this, except that the connection randomly drops (whether under load or not).
Looking back, I should have used Cat7 S/FTP cable (shielded and foil-wrapped twisted pair) to boost performance and prevent interference. In the meantime, I've ordered two short S/FTP cables for my endpoints - from the wall to the switch/NAS. But I've also read a few notes specifically about the 540 cards and a TSO error where they'd drop connections - as recently as FN10. Anyone have thoughts or experiences?

Article about TSO error:
https://redmine.ixsystems.com/issues/4560

 

[tvsjr]

If you're not getting a link light, your issue is at layer 1. Technically Cat6 is good for 50 meters... but it has to be installed properly. Things like how much you untwist really matter at 10G speeds.

I would try plugging the switch directly into the FN box using a known good, certified-for-10GBASE-T, patch cable, and see what happens.

 

[ere109]

Update today. Both new cables arrived, and the connection was still shaky. So I changed physical network port. The network port I was using is a hybrid created by Netgear capable of 10Gb, 5Gb, 2.5Gb, 1Gb. My card is capable of 10 and 1. So I moved it to a port capable of 1Gb / 100Mb. Bingo. It picked right up at 1Gb with no delay. I wonder if the switch was trying to negotiate connection speeds that the 540 card just wasn't capable of. At any rate, I am currently connected.