Very slow transfer speed but ifconfig says 1000baseT <full-duplex>

[cyberjock]

I assessed your problem differently as I didn't feel RealTek was your issue, at least not until other tests were performed to rule out other possible failures. I don't like telling someone their hardware is broken or suspect unless I have more information to support it.

I agree 100%. The problem is that *I* don't necessarily want to spend time on every single person that comes in with Realtek and try to rule out the NIC as the errors are often very non-descript and do not provide any clue whatsoever that the NIC is actually the problem. So with that, plus the fact that we are all volunteers, I'm left with either spend stupendous amounts of time with every person that comes in with Realtek or just tell them to spend $25. Frankly, asking people to spend $25 before I'll start digging deep is a fair trade. Most people also aren't interested in spending 10+ hours on a problem that can be solved by spending $25 on a new NIC.

Now if the two of you want to go to Teamviewer and do hardcore deep-down 10+ hour diagnostics to really prove it is/isn't a $25 fix, have a ball. But I pretty much exit the conversation as after letting them know how crappy and unreliable Realteks are and that they first need to use a NIC that's worth a damn.

 

[joeschmuck]

I do like TeamViewer but I only use that for my family and on very rare occasions for other people. Very rare!

Also, I think it was fixed a few postings ago, bad cable.

Cyberjock, I sense you are a little stressed out by the forums. Over time we have all seen a lot of repetition which seems to drive us nuts that folks won't just do a search for the failure. I however won't go telling someone to replace hardware just because it might save me time troubleshooting a problem that may or may not have anything to do with the NIC and that I'm volunteering to help fix. That's not me.

 

[mattlach]

Cyberjock, I sense you are a little stressed out by the forums. Over time we have all seen a lot of repetition which seems to drive us nuts that folks won't just do a search for the failure. I however won't go telling someone to replace hardware just because it might save me time troubleshooting a problem that may or may not have anything to do with the NIC and that I'm volunteering to help fix. That's not me.

Yeah,

Cyberjock, you posses a wealth of good information that is helpful to many people and I know I and many others appreciate your assistance on here.

That being said, I sometimes wonder why you volunteer your time on the forums. You don't seem to like it very much :p

 

[cyberjock]

Well, if I stopped for every network complaint that was related to Realtek's I'd have a 12hour/day job right there. It's literally a daily or bi-daily occurrence. I'm left with two choices when people make complaints and mention Realtek:

1. Say/do nothing and leave you to fester with no answer.
2. Try to point you in a good direction that seems to solve about 90% of the problems. Literally it does solve about 90% of the problems. The remaining 10% are usually doing things like using robocopy settings that are garbage, using a 3rd party application in Windows to copy programs, or enabling the "green" features on the NIC of the client machine. In fact, going Intel solves so many problems that if they buy an Intel and it doesn't work I still do Teamviewer sessions because I'm very intrigued by the problem. The rarity of Intel NICs to not solve problems is so low I've only had to do it twice this year.... and the year is 1/2 over!

Also if I do number 1 then people start complaining(and sometimes even call iX demanding that one of us answer!) I'm not kidding either. Some people think we are required to answer! LOL

If you look at the number of people that have complaints about network performance/stability, those with Intels are probably in the 5% range while those with Realteks are in the 95% range.

It's fine though, you guys don't read all of the posts and threads, so you don't see just how skewed the data is against Realteks. I'm doing what I'm doing not because I'm stressed or anything. I do it because it helps me be more efficient and helps me help more people than I would otherwise. Just 9 months ago I was handling some problems in Teamviewer for free. When you can only help 3 people a week that's just not "efficient". So in the spirit of being more efficient I have to do what I do. If we had 50 volunteers constantly stepping in with deep knowledge I wouldn't worry about stuff like efficiency because I'd only have to spend my time helping one or two in a week anyway.

To be frank, when I first heard that Realteks were Realcrap on this forum I wasn't sure if I read that right. My 2 motherboards that I tested FreeNAS on had Realteks and both worked flawlessly. But reading all the constant threads leads me to believe without a doubt that Realteks are Realcrap. Someone asked me once if I had the power to remove the Realtek NIC drivers would I? I mean, if we just claim "realteks aren't supported at all" that's an easy solution, right? But the reality of it is that a lot of people *do* use Realteks without a problem, and the number of people that use Realteks is significant enough that there would be a revolt if the drivers were removed. But the number of people that use Realtek and don't have a problem is relatively undefined because people don't show up to tell us what does work. They show up to tell us what doesn't work.

 

[mattlach]

Someone asked me once if I had the power to remove the Realtek NIC drivers would I? I mean, if we just claim "realteks aren't supported at all" that's an easy solution, right? But the reality of it is that a lot of people *do* use Realteks without a problem, and the number of people that use Realteks is significant enough that there would be a revolt if the drivers were removed. But the number of people that use Realtek and don't have a problem is relatively undefined because people don't show up to tell us what does work. They show up to tell us what doesn't work.

Agreed. If anything I have found Realtek chips to be of verying quality. Sometimes they work, but they are by no means as reliable as Intel. Broadcom's NetXtreme chips aren't bad either.

VMWare recentyl removed their Realtek 8168 and 8169 drivers when Vsphere/ESXi went from 5.1 to 5.5, presumably for similar reasons.

I don't think this is a bad approach. Generally "just don't use anything Realtek" is a good suggestion for most users, andthose who know well enough to disregard the warning, probably can figure out how to install a driver module in FreeBSD anyway, with only a minor inconvenience.