Ethernet Products
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Can a processor cause Ethernet and time problems?

ppara5
Valued Contributor I
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I hope Scott reads this because this is the same system he helped with: i5-2500K and DH67CL (I have W-7, W-8.1, Linux Mint, and Fedora installed on different SSDs, three Intel and one Crucial). This is not a warranty issue because the parts are too old.

To refresh the memory of anyone who cares, the system was completely non-operational because I used BIOS to match the 7-7-7-24 timing of RAM (I still don't understand why that was a problem, but that's water under the bridge). I was able to get it working by putting the motherboard into maintenance mode and then using recovery BIOS, thanks to Scott.

But ever since then, there have been two problems. I've never been able to see a pattern, but the time will sometimes be 6 hours later than it should, with this happening on both W-8.1 and Linux. I reset it and everything's fine. Worse, however, is that Ethernet connectivity will be lost, with a reboot fixing the problem, with this happening on both W-7 and Linux. What's strange is that I cannot remember losing Ethernet connectivity on W-8.1, but maybe that's just luck.

Idle temperatures for both processor and motherboard are in the high 20s due to a Noctua cooler and a fan blowing in from the side.

I tried four solutions: installing an Intel gigabyte NIC card, a new Ethernet cable, a different port on the router, and a new battery, but none of them fixed the problem. I have other systems using the same router and they never exhibit the time change or Ethernet drop-outs. I've run IPDT a number of times since then, but nothing bad every turns up. Scott mentioned at the time that there was a possibility that my screwing with memory timings in BIOS damaged the memory controller in the processor.

My questions are:

- Could a damaged memory controller cause the above problems. I would think it's possible.

- Is there a better utility I can use to test the memory controller?

- Could it be the motherboard? If so, how could I test it?

- Is there any other diagnostic test I can run?

I have a spare, used Ivy Bridge processor that I will install into the motherboard and run a long-term test, but first I want to exhaust any diagnostic possibilities with the current configuration.

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idata
Employee
795 Views

Hello paramountain,

 

 

Thank you for contacting the Intel community.

 

 

Honestly, I have never heard if a processor can cause Ethernet issues, most likely Ethernet issues can be cause for a bad NIC, router issues, interference, bad Ethernet cable etc, also this could an issue on the NIC slot as well but I doubt it is the processor.

 

 

You can try doing some more tests on the processor with the https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU- Intel® XTU, with the XTU you can monitor, stress a system.

 

 

To really test if the processor can cause this problem which I doubt is to try with another processor, this will be the best way to do it.

 

 

 

Best regards,

 

 

 

Ivan U.

 

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6 Replies
bnika
Novice
795 Views

i ping my router, modem, and either local gateway or VPS continuously. if all have the same issue (packet loss, latency spike), then the problem is somewhere from the router inwards.

from here, it's a bit tougher for me. introduce a switch inbetween computer and router and ping another computer on switch to eliminate router. run iperf from router directly to computer or from another computer on switch (or directly connected) to test NIC hardware. beyond that, i'm out of ideas

ppara5
Valued Contributor I
795 Views

I do have a wired router that I can use as a switch between the router and PC. I'll play around with that, thanks.

I removed the video card, as it was causing some minor video aberrations.

I don't want to change too many variables at one time, though.

UPDATE: After I removed the video card, I saw both time and Ethernet bugs. So that's not it.

I swapped the Ethernet cables for a system that works and the one in question after the problem PC lost connectivity. Instant fix! I could have sworn I did that before. So it could be either one bad port in the router or the entire router. Next I'll remove the current router and replace it with the older, wired one and run for a while.

I find it difficult to believe that the router causes time changes of six hours, though.

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TGrab1
New Contributor III
795 Views

Are you sure it isn't the cable itself that is bad? I would suspect a bad cable more than a port dying on a router/switch. I mean it does happen, but I would still suspect the cable first.

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ppara5
Valued Contributor I
795 Views

No, I'm not sure, and that's a good point. The current cables are Belkin cat-6, bought maybe six months ago. This problem comes and goes with no apparent pattern, so I forgot that I had swapped cables before. But now that I'm using my old wired router -- both are blue Linksys from days gone by, with the wireless one having been flashed with DD-WRT -- both the time and Ethernet problems have disappeared. I need to use this new configuration for some time to make sure it is really gone.

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idata
Employee
796 Views

Hello paramountain,

 

 

Thank you for contacting the Intel community.

 

 

Honestly, I have never heard if a processor can cause Ethernet issues, most likely Ethernet issues can be cause for a bad NIC, router issues, interference, bad Ethernet cable etc, also this could an issue on the NIC slot as well but I doubt it is the processor.

 

 

You can try doing some more tests on the processor with the https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU- Intel® XTU, with the XTU you can monitor, stress a system.

 

 

To really test if the processor can cause this problem which I doubt is to try with another processor, this will be the best way to do it.

 

 

 

Best regards,

 

 

 

Ivan U.

 

ppara5
Valued Contributor I
795 Views

Thanks, Ivan. It's good to hear that processors don't cause these kind of problems. I was starting to think I lost my mind.

Thanks to everyone for their assistance. I will close this now and continue to test long-term.

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