topic Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect in Ethernet Products

I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 14:43:19 GMT

Hi,

I'm using an http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EPC612D8A-TB# Specifications ASRock Rack EPC612D8A-TB motherboard with two Intel onboard NICs (I210 (Ethernet 2) and I217-LM (Ethernet)), running Win 8.1 Pro x64 with all Windows Updates installed and the latest Intel Ethernet driver package (20.2.3001.0). My problem is with the I217-LM, according to the http://www.mouser.com/pdfdocs/i217brief.pdf Intel spec sheet it does support RSS (cp. figure on page 2).

In the I217-LM's advanced driver settings there is an option to enable and disable RSS. However Windows itself always says that the I217-LM is not RSS-capable.

The same option in the I210 driver options has the expected effect: With the PowerShell command get-SmbClientNetworkInterface you can see the RSS capability changing from True to False and vice versa.

Can anyone tell why the I217-LM is not getting the RSS feature?

Further system details:

CPU: Xeon E5-1620-V3

RAM: 2 x 16 GiB Crucial DDR4-2133 ECC

The motherboard does not have a later BIOS/UEFI release than the one installed.

Thank you very much for your help!

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

st4 — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 01:40:07 GMT

Hi JBBG,

Thank you for the post. Let me chechk on this.

rgds,

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

st4 — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 05:09:22 GMT

Hi JBBG,

Good day. You may refer to the following and hopefull could be of help:

1) Possible there is a problem in Windows to read the RSS setting from driver. You may check on this 3rd party website for reference:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/11/10/windows-server-2012-file-server-tip-make-sure-your-network-interfaces-are-rss-capable.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/11/10/windows-server-2012-file-server-tip-make-sure-your-network-interfaces-are-rss-capable.aspx

(Please note this is a 3rd party website for your reference, Intel does not have control over the content of this website)

2) Try disabling the i210 adapter RSS feature which might be taking 4 queues of the 4 processor core.

3) Possibly the OEM board vendor did not enable this feature, so you may check with ASROCK*.

Hope the above information help.

rgds,

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 08:52:14 GMT

Thank you for your response, wb_Intel,

unfortunately no progress could be made.

I've tried disabling the I210 completely (hinted in the blog) and checked that when enabled that its RSS queue value is set to 2 so the I217-LM's and I210's total RSS queue is 4 which is the number of physical CPU cores - still the I217-LM RSS capability is "False" in get-SMBClientNetworkInterface

I've also contacted ASRock Rack, up till now they cannot explain this behavior but they can replicate it so a defective individual motherboard on my end is out of question. Also, shouldn't the Intel driver take note of possible OEM feature limitations? It does so with the limited teaming functionailty of the I217-LM of this concrete motherboard model due to its use for AMT - but that shouldn't affect RSS.

Additionally I get the same RSS error on a different motherboard, also with two built-in Intel NICs, the Gigabyte http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4483# sp GA-Z87X-UD5H with I210 and I217-V which should also be RSS-capable (each NIC's queue is set to 2 with a quad-core CPU installed).

Does anybody have an I217 in use where RSS is actually working under Windows 8.1 Pro x64?

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

st4 — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 01:41:07 GMT

Hi JBBG,

Thank you for the further information. Let me further check on this.

rgds,

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 16:13:23 GMT

Further details on this problem:

The issue seems to be affecting multiple onboard NICs: To check that the number of CPU cores isn't the problem with RSS in the system described in the original posting I got a I350-T4 (V2) and plugged it into a PC with an i7 3770K (four physical CPU cores).

All four ports of the I350-T4 can be connected simultaneously and RSS is working just fine with a total of four CPU cores.

To my surprise RSS isn't working with the onboard NIC of that motherboard, too (82579V on ASUS Maximus V Extreme) even though it is enabled in its Intel driver's advanced settings (using the latest 20.3 x64) and the PowerShell command "get-NetAdapterRSS" displays it with "Enabled" and "True". However the commands "get-SMBClientNetworkInterface" and "get-SMBServerNetworkInterface" attest a "False" at the RSS capability.

Something I noticed:

In the output of the command "get-NetAdapterRSS" there are properties called "RssProcessorArray" and "IndirectionTable". The problematic onboard NIC's values of these are like the ones of a disconnected port of the I350-T4 card. I've made a screenshot of this where only two of the I350-T4's ports and the onboard NIC's port are connected.

Maybe there are some communication issues within the driver and the connection state of the onboard NICs that is preventing RSS from working properly? The I217-LM is behaving the same way so this problem seems to be larger than initially expected.

I hope this can be resolved.

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

st4 — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 23:57:04 GMT

Hi JBBG,

Thank you for the further test and additional info provided. Let me further check into this.

rgds,

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 15:11:49 GMT

I could test a motherboard with a single I217-V (not paired with a different Intel NIC) today, same result, RSS enabled via driver but Windows 8.1 Pro x64 is not able to use RSS with it.

Summary so far...

Affected products (all motherboards with latest UEFI releases installed on them, used latest Intel ethernet driver package 20.3):

- http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EPC612D8A-TB# Specifications ASRock Rack EPC612D8A-TB (2 Intel NICs, I210 (RSS working), I217-LM (RSS not working))

- http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4483# sp Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H (2 Intel NICs, I210 (RSS working), I217-V (RSS not working))

- http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4995# ov Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 TH (1 Intel NIC, I217-V (RSS not working))

- https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/MAXIMUS_V_EXTREME/ ASUS Maximus V Extreme (1 Intel NIC, 82579V (RSS not working))

Quick methodology to check RSS under Windows 8.1 with three easy commands:

- Launch PowerShell as Administrator

- "get-NetAdapterRSS" - If RSS is enabled in the NIC's driver there is going to be a line with "Enabled" and "True" however the property "IndirectionTable" must not be empty (this it is on all NICs where RSS is not working)

- "get-SMBClientNetworkInterface" - check if Windows considers the NIC RSS capable when receiving data

- "get-SMBServerNetworkInterface" - check if Windows considers the NIC RSS capable when sending data

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

SYeo3 — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 09:15:46 GMT

Hi JBBG,

Thanks for the information. We'll update you on our findings.

Sincerely,

Sandy

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

AP16 — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 14:33:47 GMT

Hmm, was all connected ports on same speed? Considering

http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/06/28/the-basics-of-smb-multichannel-a-feature-of-windows-server-2012-and-smb-3-0.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/06/28/the-basics-of-smb-multichannel-a-feature-of-windows-server-2012-and-smb-3-0.aspx

Network adapters of different speeds. SMB Multichannel will choose to use the faster network adapter. Only network interfaces of same type (RDMA, RSS or none) and speed will be used simultaneously by SMB Multichannel, so the slower adapter will be idle.

So, if onboard NIC was connected at lower speed (like 100 Mbit), it was just ignored by SMB Mutichannel. You can also try to issue a command

Set-SmbClientConfiguration -ConnectionCountPerRssNetworkInterface 2

as default value is 4, and NIC is capable only of 2 queues.

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

st4 — Sun, 20 Sep 2015 23:41:04 GMT

Hi JFFulcrum,

Thank you for the info. We are still checking on this.

rgds,

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

AP16 — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 07:14:18 GMT

Yes, my system with 82579 and 82574 also show same behavior: RSS is enabled in adapter properties, wtih 2 queues each, but ignored by Windows.

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 12:09:50 GMT

Thank you for your input.

Yes, all NICs run at 1 Gbps (as can be seen on the screenshots). The RSS queue value 2 of the various problematic NICs doesn't seem to be a problem for Windows' SMB: For testing purposes I reduced the properly working I350-T2's RSS queue from 4 to 2 and the PowerShell commands mentioned in posting # 7 still attest RSS being active in Windows.

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JHend8 — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 18:52:16 GMT

I am seeing this same issue with the I217-LM. My case is slightly simpler. I too am using Windows 8.1 x64 fully patched up. I have a Dell M4800 with an i7-4910MQ CPU. It has no other NIC devices (wieless adapter devices disabled in the BIOS). I have the most recent Dell BIOS and Intel Drivers (12.13.17.4). I have no VLANs (and of course, no teaming since there's nothing to team to...). The link is auto/auto just like the switch port and is negotiating 1000/Full.

I actually stumbled upon this thread and I'm glad I did. I had simply assumed that the RSS was working, and not thought to check it this way. I was actually trying to find out if I could increase the number of RSS Queues to 4 since I have 4 physical cores (I knew you have to discount the Hyper-Threaded cores).

Powershell command outputs:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-SmbClientNetworkInterface

Interface Index RSS Capable RDMA Capable Speed IpAddresses Friendly Name

--------------- ----------- ------------ ----- ----------- -------------

3 False False 1 Gbps {10.250.3.50} Ethernet

6 False False 0 bps {fe80::5efe:10.2... isatap.voice.the...

7 False False 100 Kbps {2001:0:9d38:6ab... Local Area Conne...

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-NetAdapterRss

Name : Ethernet

InterfaceDescription : Intel(R) Ethernet Connection I217-LM

Enabled : True

NumberOfReceiveQueues : 2

Profile : NUMAStatic

BaseProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0:0

MaxProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0:6

MaxProcessors : 4

RssProcessorArray: [Group:Number/NUMA Distance] : 0:0/0 0:2/0 0:4/0 0:6/0

IndirectionTable: [Group:Number] :

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-SmbServerNetworkInterface

Scope Name Interface Index RSS Capable RDMA Capable Speed IpAddress

---------- --------------- ----------- ------------ ----- ---------

* 3 False False 1 Gbps 10.250.3.50

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:31:03 GMT

Thanks for sharing. I'm happy to see that this topic is getting traction and I'm not the only one affected by it. I wonder on how many NICs RSS isn't actually working and how this could have gone unnoticed for so long.

I would like to ask anybody that reads this and has a Intel NIC installed that is supposed to have RSS enabled (check the advanced driver settings of the NIC in question for that option) and perform the mentioned PowerShell commands.

Quick methodology to check RSS under Windows 8.x in four easy steps:

1) Launch PowerShell as Administrator

2) get-NetAdapterRSS - If RSS is enabled in the NIC's driver there is going to be a line with "Enabled" and "True" however the property "IndirectionTable" must not be empty (this it is on all NICs where RSS is not working)

3) get-SMBClientNetworkInterface - check if Windows considers the NIC RSS capable when receiving data

4) get-SMBServerNetworkInterface - check if Windows considers the NIC RSS capable when sending data

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JHend8 — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 17:09:26 GMT

I just checked an HP laptop I have with an 82579LM based adapter. It shows the same (RSS Enabled: True under Get-NetAdapterRSS, but RSS Capable: False under GetSmbClient/ServerInterface, along with a blank Indirection Table.

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JHend8 — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:12:29 GMT

BTW, make sure you run this and verify that the Receive-Side Scaling State is enabled.

netsh interface tcp show global

I am performing testing right now doing bulk SIP call testing. Both the SIP signalling and RTP are using UDP, so it's pretty much an interrupt frenzy. It almost SEEMS that RSS is working for me, even though it clearly says it's not. Here are some things that make it look like it is working:

1) The CPU usage on cores 0 and 2 (the first two hyper-threaded cores) is close to balanced, and much higher than the other 6 cores (other 2 physical, and all 4 HT cores). This is as expected with two RSS queues.

2) The following PerfMon counters show a balance between CPU 0 and 2 with no (exactly 0) data on any other CPU's (physical or HT):

Interrupt DPC Cycles/sec

Interrupt DPC Latency Cycles/sec

Miniport Return Packet Cycles/Sec

NDIS Receive Indication Cycles/sec

NDIS Return Packet Cycles/sec

Stack Receive Indication Cycles/sec

But, there are things that don't support it as well:

1) The following PerfMon counters DO NOT show a balance between CPU 0 and 2 as they have no (exactly 0) data for any CPU except CPU 0:

Interrupt Cycles/Sec (Per Processor Network Activity Cycles Object)

Interupt NDIS Send Complete Cycles/sec

Stack Send Complete Cycles/sec

Side note: Yes, I realize there is redundancy in the statistics I reported... like the fact that Interrupt DPC Cycles/Sec automatically means that Interrupt DPC Latency Cycles/Sec would also match the pattern.

2) All of the other things mentioned above from PowerShell.

Maybe some of this will help.

-Jim

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JHend8 — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 17:59:52 GMT

Another update. I threw a different SSD into the machine and loaded Windows 2012 R2 (same NDIS 6.4 as Windows 8.1) and tried this there as well. I expected the results to be the same, and they were. But, I thought it was worth trying and reporting.

I also sent a private message to @wb_Intel and @sandy_Intel to see if they might chime in again on the thread since both had previously.

-Jim

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 18:15:05 GMT

I should be able to test an I218-V next week. By the way, is there an easy methodolgy to really check RSS in Windows 7 or Linux so that we can exclude 8.x being the culprit?

I guess we won't hear much else than "we're checking in on this" from the support staff, let's hope that this issue hasn't a "VW-esque" dimension (meaning all consumer-oriented NICs aren't really capable of RSS although it being stated in the product briefs and ethernet drivers).

I imagine they have access to various Intel-based systems, most should run Windows 8.x and the three step check in PowerShell is quickly done. It would be nice if they posted a list of tested and affected NICs.

Re: I217-LM - no RSS possible under Win 8.1 Pro x64 - driver setting without effect

JJoha1 — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 15:53:48 GMT

I218-V joins the No-RSS club:

Motherboard http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z97%20Professional/ ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Professional, latest UEFI version (2.30) installed.