Intel Communication: Intel® Ethernet Controller I226 Series-Random connection drops at random times

[Cam__Intel]

Some customers have recently reported connection drops at random times, specifically on the newly launched 700 series motherboards with Intel® Ethernet Controller I226-V.

Intel has reproduced the issue and is diligently working on a root cause and fix. For any of our customers experiencing this problem, a mitigation option to explore is to disable the “Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE)” mode in the Advanced Windows/ Linux driver setting.  We believe this should help. We are continuing to assess the situation and will follow-up accordingly.

We appreciate those who have shared information about their experience with this issue, and we welcome your input.  Intel will continue to review the comments and information you share to help us work towards a solution.

Best Regards,

Intel

[pentiumIIIpowered]

Here's what I'm working with in regards to the issue,

ASUS Z790-A WIFI, occurred on BIOS 0806 & 0809

Intel i7 13700K

I226-V drivers 1.1.3.28 & 1.1.3.34, occurred on both drivers 

Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) option disabled, no notable impact on or off

Set speed to 1GBPS, no change

Network switches, Cisco 2960-CX and 9300-48U

Issue is intermittent, will affect something every few times, not every time but is frequent enough to be very disruptive.

[JunAn_Intel]

Hi pentiumIIIpowered,

Thank you for posting in Intel Ethernet Communities. 

I'm working directly with our engineering team to help debug this issue. If you are willing we could use your help.

Can you please share with us the following:

1. Memory dump after the issue reproduced (see instruction below)
2. Collect event viewer log (see instruction below)
3. What is the link partner (switch/mode,/router) being used (company and model), it might be that the issue related to interoperability with specific devices.

After the above information is collected, our next step will be to collect a driver log during the failure. Instructions on how to do this will be forthcoming.

 Memory dump:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/generate-a-kernel-or-complete-crash-dump

1. Follow the manually generate memory dump file 
2. After restart MEMORY.DMP will be found in C:\Windows\memory.dmp

Event viewer: In event viewer choose Windows Logs > System > Save All Event As and save the file

Thank you very much for your help.

Best Regards,

JunAn_Intel

[pentiumIIIpowered]

I left my computer powered on over the weekend, when I returned I waited for the issue to occur to gather the logs but the issue has not re-occured after several days.  I made no changes, the only change I see is Windows Update KB5019275 was automatically installed, not sure that it has any relevance or not, but as of this email the issue seems to have stopped.

Windows 10 Enterprise version 21H2 build 19044.2546

I226-V Driver 1.1.3.34

[JunAn_Intel]

Hello pentiumIIIpowered ,

I hope you're having a wonderful day. I am just sending a soft follow up to check if you still have questions or clarifications. We will wait for your reply. 

If you have questions, please let us know. Thank you

Best regards,

JunAn_Intel

Intel Customer Support

[JunAn_Intel]

Hello pentiumIIIpowered ,

Please be informed that we will now close this request since we haven't received any response from our previous follow up. Just feel free to post a new question if you may have any other inquiry in the future as this thread will no longer be monitored.

Best regards,

JunAn_Intel

Intel Customer Support

[Arkal]

Hello,

I've been experiencing the same issues described by the user "pentiumIIIpowered".

Windows 11 and Windows 10, occurred on both

ASUS Z790-A WIFI, tested both BIOS 0806 & 0809

Intel i7 13700KF

I226-V drivers 1.1.3.28 & 1.1.3.34 & 2.1.2.3, occurred on all drivers 

Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) option disabled, no notable impact on or off

Set speed to 1GBPS, no change

Router Asus RT-AX58U direct connection to eth4 (Port n. 1)

Tried all kind of CAT cables: 5E, 6, 8. occured on all of them

The disconnection occurs randomly after 1-2 mins after boot. Once it starts, it goes in a loop of connection/disconnection that never ends.

Please help, the PC is unusable.

Thanks

[NiklasP]

• Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z790-A WIFI 
• BIOS: 0809
• CPU: Intel Core i7-13700KF
• Cable Modem: N/A
• Network Switch: Cisco SG300-28PP (fw: 1.4.11.5)
• I226 LAN driver version: 1.1.3.28
• Issue Reproduction Steps: Continuous random disconnects, at a few minutes intervalsdisabling Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) seems to work better.

[Cyrax]

Hello,

Just bought an ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI D4 with INTEL 226 controller powered by an i9

After some minutes launching new computer :
- Disconnected from my trading tools.
- Game unpayable (disconneted every some minutes, lags....)
- Discord can't talk for 5 minutes without  being disconneted.

Switched to wifi, no more disconnections. Everything ok.
Reswitch to ethernet, same problems....

Made a searxch on google, and surprise, a lot of users can't use there 226 ethernet controller.

i226 is totally not working fine. It is unacceptable for this kind of high end controller.
Had luck to have bought a wifi CM, but it's a shame to switch to wifi when you have a 2.5 Gb ethernet controller.

And yes i  tested EEE, 1gb limit and stuff nothing is working,
BIOS CM latest (ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI D4 BIOS 0812) and ethernet drivers lastest (Intel I225/I226 LAN driver V2.1.2.3 for Windows 11 64-bit. and tested also lastest on intel website)
Please do someting.
Regards.

[AY1]

Hello.

I have sent you a private message inquiring certain information for further investigations, could you help to check and confirm accordingly?

Thank you.

[Cyrax]

EDIT : Ok just saw it.

[Arkal]

@JunAn_Intel any news from the engineering team? the issue is still there and there's no stable fix available.

[Flamefaker]

Hello,

I made the dump, it is too big to attach here so I uploaded it to my Google Drive. Here are the links to the files:

Memory Dump: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pgklb51AKURmoU-twH0l8l3EJzYBiT13/view?usp=sharing

Event Log File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VdBTFIxRpe-lyw6MIzrl1PR8xte6mVHp/view?usp=sharing

And all the Hardware components that are in use:

Motherboard: MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI (MS-7D91)
BIOS: H.20
CPU: 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-13600K
Cable Modem: FRITZ!Box 6591 Cable
Network Switch: TP-Link
I226 LAN driver version: 1.1.3.28

And the reproduction steps: Let's say I want to download something, like a game from Steam or just do a simple speedtest on speedtest.net while playing music via Spotify or watch movies on Netflix in the background, you get a huge download speed drop. I have a 1000 Mbit/s connection, and it would drop to around 150 to 200 Mbit/s while playing a song with Spotify e.g..

I hope i could help.

Best Regards

Flamefaker

[AY1]

Hello.

I have sent you a private message inquiring certain information for further investigations, could you help to check and confirm accordingly?

Thank you.

[ivn]

Motherboard: MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI

BIOS: AMI 3.5 (11/15/22)

CPU: i9-13900KF

Cable Modem:  

Network Switch: Mikrotik RB750GL

I226 LAN driver version:  2.1.1.14

Disabling power-efficient ethernet worked for me. No more small disconnections.

-i

[pamcarvalho]

Minha placa é uma ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO e os tres BIOS que foram liberdos pela ASUS não correspondem aos BIOS declarados aqui no site.

A pergunta então é este problema de drive afeta todos os modelos Z790?

[Diaren]

I can reproduce this issue with iperf3, and am happy to help resolve.

Motherboard: ASUS Z790 Hero (i226)

CPU: Intel Core i9 13900K

Connection & Switches: i226 -> GS108 -> GS108Ev3 -> i210

Link Speed: Auto (1GBps)

I226-V Driver Version: 2.1.2.3 (also fails with 1.x)

With Energy Efficient Ethernet enabled: iperf3 -n2G -c 192.168.x.x will produce the issue approximately 95% of the time. Interface restarts shortly after 100GB has been transferred, connection drops... and reconnects within approx 10 seconds.

With EEE disabled, I cannot reproduce.

Events logged, 27 on drop... 32 on reconnect:

Log Name:      System
Source:        e2fnexpress
Date:          02/03/2023 15:53:25
Event ID:      32
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      ct02
Description:
Intel(R) Ethernet Controller I226-V
 Network link has been established at 1Gbps full duplex.

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="e2fnexpress" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="16388">32</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>4</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-03-02T15:53:25.9766581Z" />
    <EventRecordID>20683</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="488" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>ct02</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>Intel(R) Ethernet Controller I226-V</Data>
    <Binary>00000000020028000000000020000440000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      System
Source:        e2fnexpress
Date:          02/03/2023 15:53:18
Event ID:      27
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      ct02
Description:
Intel(R) Ethernet Controller I226-V
 Network link is disconnected.

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="e2fnexpress" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="32772">27</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>3</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-03-02T15:53:18.4980872Z" />
    <EventRecordID>20682</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="580" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>ct02</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>Intel(R) Ethernet Controller I226-V</Data>
    <Binary>0000000002002800000000001B000480000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
</Event>

[AY1]

Hello.

Thank you for your information; your issues seem related to EEE. Intel will continue to investigate the EEE issue

[Cyrax]

Still no news about a fix ?

My ethernet controller is still unable to work fine for more than 5 minutes on a 500 Euros more CM...

Seems that a lot a users experiencing same issue and you have a lot of data. 
What is taking so much time ?

A lot of high end motherbopards are with i226 and users buy them while ethernet chipset is buggy...

[Yhalen]

I was having a lot of reconnect events in the windows event viewer with the I226-V controller "at least 1 event every 3 minuets"

Was able to fix it by installing the latest driver "Intel 2.1.3.3  from 2/9/2023" then going in to the "Power Management Tab" of the Controller's Properties and unchecking "Allow this device to wake the computer" and "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" options then pressing OK

I did not change any other settings.

Has been three days and I have not get any my disconnects events in the windows event viewer.

 

If the boxes are left checked with driver 2.1.3.3 I was still getting the windows event viewer alerts.

Not sure if the older drivers would have been ok with just unchecking the power options or not.

I hope this is helpful

[AY1]

Hello.

I have sent you a private message inquiring certain information for further investigations, could you help to check and confirm accordingly?

Thank you.