Intel i225V Onboard Z490 Slow download speeds?

[kiz2694]

Hi everyone, 

I just recently built a new PC using an ASUS Z490 Gaming F as my motherboard. The onboard NIC is a Intel i225V 2.5GB. I am experiencing strange throttling in Steam and general Internet speed tests. I have a 500mbps fibre connection and before on my much older pc I would get around 480mbps on pretty much every speed test available, now it's hovering around 150-250mbps. Steam would also download around 48MBps, now it's sticking around 24MBps. 

I have updated the firmware and drivers to newest available. 

As a test, I also installed a cheap TP-Link Nic and all my issues have been resolved using this. So it appears to be an issue with the Intel Nic IMO. Has anyone come across this issue or at least similar? I would rather not have a cheap TP link NIC if my onboard NIC is meant to operate better than this. 

Thanks in advance. Please ask any questions that may help to lead to an answer.  

Kind regards

[GordonFreeman]

Seeing how many are affects, I wouldn't hold my breath for a quick fix. Especially if it's hardware related.

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/gp2okm/intel_25g_lan_issue_impacted_models/

[Thorsten]

I just installed the latest Windows 10 updates. And my speeds are back... How about you?

[chr1s]

latest windows updates did not fix the slow speeds on the Intel i225v 

This has been acknowledged by the vendors as a hardware issue. 

The only soluition for the Z490 boards is chose one with e Realtek lan nic or wait for Intel's version 3 of the board.

[DanVy]

I found myself with the same problem. What i did to fix the problem was Download the Driver Package where i can configure my intel ethernet card and i noticed it came with things tunned down. so i just went one by one and clicked "make default" my D/U speed went from 350/200 to 945/475 and from 7ms to 3ms. look prints:

[sven2084]

i have the same issue with my Asus Z490 Mainboard.

At speedtests i get about ~250Mbit Up/Down. ( i have 1GB Up/down)

After the adjustment from DanVy to set the Transmit Buffers to 1024 (it was on 512 for me) i got now 500Mbit.
When i use the second NIC on my Mainboard (Aquantia 10G) i get 930Mbit Up/Down)

So with this adjustment it is a little bit better but not good.

So PLEASE Intel Answer to this Topic... Several People have the same issuses here...

[DanVy]

Have u checked every single option on the driver app? And is ur cable able to provide the speed your isp gives you?

[chr1s]

Hi , other pc's conected to the same cable give full speeds 

I have a 1GB internet connection but generaly see around 940 / 960 mbps

The asus z490 board struggles to see above 650 / 700 at best

[DanVy]

I have the same connection 1gb and i also have a Z490E and i have 945mb download

[chr1s]

Interesting read - looks like its a lottery on the chip that is on your board.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/imzgfc/asus_releases_the_new_strix_b550a_gaming/ 

[Coert]

I have the same problem since a few weeks on an EVGA X99 Micro with Intel I217-LM AND some non-intel USB ethernet adapter. I have no idea what causes this.

I use Ubisoft's Uplay every time I reinstall Windows to check my speeds and am only getting 20Mbit while speedtest tells me 500Mbit. Only got the full speed back once after a reinstall, but the issue returned after a few minutes. I also ran Uplay from the OOBE setup screen  after a fresh install, so Windows 10 had no chance to download drivers or alter anything and it was still slow.

I have it on both Windows v1909 and v2004. Most browser downloads are fast, just like speedtest.net. Also local network gives me 1000Mbit so no problem there. My laptops are fine as well. I am thinking of testing with Windows 7 because this drives me insane.

[AtomEmin]

I have the exact same problems with my ASUS ROG STRIX Z490-G GAMING (Wi-Fi)

My old PC gets more than 900Mbit in speedtest.

This new PC gets less than 450Mbit in speedtest.

I tried plugging this PC directly into the fiber connection (no router) and it gives the same slow speeds.

I kept looking for different reasons. Software-related, hardware-related. New settings, new cables.

I was sure it had to be some setting in windows, but then again, why would this new PC be configured differently in windows than my old one. 

Now I can see, just like some of the other posters in this topic, that it has to be a firmware or hardware error.

How do we tackle this if our motherboards are defect?

[DanVy]

Try IntelPRO driver and configure ur card to default. 

[AtomEmin]

Thanks for the help  -  but...

I downloaded and installed PROWinx64.zip from Intels download center

and I didn't change any settings in the utility program, if that's what you mean by default.

No improvements.

There are 3 available tests in the utility program.

Hardware and connection tests passed. 

Cable test actually failed but I don't trust that, since this is CAT6, that works fine with my old PC.

Besides I have tried a different cable as well which is currently sitting in my old PC and running fine speeds.

Was I supposed to do something else with the Intel PRO utility?

[DanVy]

you need to change it. thats the problem. it wont come at default there are 2 or 3 settings that are different from default when you turn intelPRO. try run every single setting one by one and press default for each one.

[AtomEmin]

It works! 
Thanks so much DanVy

I can't believe how difficult this is for the end user, just to get normal ethernet speed.

Inside the intel PROSet Adapter Configuration Utility (see my above post for download info) I selected each Adapter setting in the list and clicked Default value for each. Essentially I changed these values to

Energy efficient ethernet Off
Interrupt Moderation Rate Low 
Receive buffers 1024
Transmit Buffers 1024


These values can be changed here as well directly in Windows (I did it that way on my 2nd identical PC) -> 
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network Connections
right click on your connection and choose "Properties"
in the new window choose "Configure"
Go to the "Advanced" tab
Here you find the settings as well.

[DanVy]

I dont know if this is the same posst but i posted exacly the same fix on this forum. i dont know why Intel dont use what we found to help end user fix the problem... they should put it at default on next driver update DONE. i mean cant be that hard.

[woodrobotics]

I have a ROG STRIX Z490-E Gamming motherboard with the Intel I225-V Ethernet Controller that was having this same issue. After making the suggested changes from AtomEmin, I can get full gig speeds on my internal network and the full 700Mbps/40Mpbs from my ISP using speedtest.net and google's speed test. My ping times have also dropped to what I expect them to be. Thanks for saving me loads of time trying to solve this blind.

NIC Settings:

Property	Value
ARP Offload	Enabled
DMA Coalescing	Disabled
Enable PME	Disabled
Energy Efficient Ethernet	Off
Flow Control	Rx & Tx Enabled
Gigabit Master Slave Mode	Auto Detect
Interrupt Moderation	Enabled
Interrupt Moderation Rate	Low
IPv4 Checksum Offload	Disabled
Jumbo Packet	Disabled
Large Send Offload V2 (IPv4)	Disabled
Large Send Offload V2 (IPv6)	Disabled
Locally Administered Address	Not Present
Log Link State Event	Enabled
Maximum Number of RSS Queues	4 Queues
NS Offload	Enabled
Packet Priority & VLAN	Packet Priority & VLAN Enabled
Receive Buffers	1024
Speed & Duplex	2.5 Gbps Full Duplex
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4)	Rx & Tx Enabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6)	Rx & Tx Enabled
Transmit Buffers	1024
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4)	Rx & Tx Enabled
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv6)	Rx & Tx Enabled
Wait for Link	Auto Detect
Wake on Link Settings	Disabled
Wake on Magic Packet	Disabled
Wake on Pattern Match	Enabled

[fletchowns]

Thanks @AtomEmin & @woodrobotics! Changing the Interrupt Moderation Rate from Extreme to Low was all I had to do to fix my issue

[Bossington]

I've been chasing this dang problem for days, and I just wanted to pop in here and say these settings are exactly what got me up to my normal speeds. ROG STRIX Z490-F, I'm paying for 600 down, was getting 200 max. Now I'm back to 600. Excellent work!

---

@woodrobotics wrote:

I have a ROG STRIX Z490-E Gamming motherboard with the Intel I225-V Ethernet Controller that was having this same issue. After making the suggested changes from AtomEmin, I can get full gig speeds on my internal network and the full 700Mbps/40Mpbs from my ISP using speedtest.net and google's speed test. My ping times have also dropped to what I expect them to be. Thanks for saving me loads of time trying to solve this blind.

NIC Settings:

Property	Value
ARP Offload	Enabled
DMA Coalescing	Disabled
Enable PME	Disabled
Energy Efficient Ethernet	Off
Flow Control	Rx & Tx Enabled
Gigabit Master Slave Mode	Auto Detect
Interrupt Moderation	Enabled
Interrupt Moderation Rate	Low
IPv4 Checksum Offload	Disabled
Jumbo Packet	Disabled
Large Send Offload V2 (IPv4)	Disabled
Large Send Offload V2 (IPv6)	Disabled
Locally Administered Address	Not Present
Log Link State Event	Enabled
Maximum Number of RSS Queues	4 Queues
NS Offload	Enabled
Packet Priority & VLAN	Packet Priority & VLAN Enabled
Receive Buffers	1024
Speed & Duplex	2.5 Gbps Full Duplex
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4)	Rx & Tx Enabled
TCP Checksum Offload (IPv6)	Rx & Tx Enabled
Transmit Buffers	1024
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4)	Rx & Tx Enabled
UDP Checksum Offload (IPv6)	Rx & Tx Enabled
Wait for Link	Auto Detect
Wake on Link Settings	Disabled
Wake on Magic Packet	Disabled
Wake on Pattern Match	Enabled

---

[FranzJeger]

Btw, this almost solves my problem as well but the good download speeds are very very temporary on Windows 11 before reverting to the same old garbage download speeds 1-2,2Mb/s 

[KaterKarlo99]

Hi,

i have an ASUS ROG STRIX Z490-G GAMING Mainboard with an i225V NIC onboard and i've
got the same issues as mentioned above: very slow receiving speed (around 200 Mbits / 20MB/s).

I've installed teh latest Intel ProWorx driver and have configured the settings like AtomErwin:

Energy efficient ethernet Off
Interrupt Moderation Rate Low
Receive buffers 1024
Transmit Buffers 1024

and now everything is fine like it should be.

Receiving speed is now around 984 Mbits / 99MB/s).

So thank you for the settings, i can confirm that they made the trick!

BR, KaterKarlo99