Messages about disconnection: The Intel I226-V controller may also cause problems

It’s been some time since Intel’s first 2.5Gb/s network controller was released to the consumer segment in the form of the I225-V-PHY in 2019. Moreover, this controller doesn’t have a great reputation. As of today, there are already three hardware revisions of Intel’s I225-V controller due to several known issues, which should eliminate issues that were reported and validated by Intel itself. In April 2020 we had I mentioned about it. There are also now more reports of problems with the I226-V controller. Colleagues from techpowerup.com have now been able to validate these issues.

With the first revision of the I225-V controller with specification codes SLN9D and SLN9C, there were discrepancies with the interpacket gap, that is, the waiting times between two Ethernet packets. Regarding the first revision, this can lead to packet loss, causing the transfer rate to drop to a maximum of 10Mb/s. As a workaround, there was simply the option of downgrading from 2.5 Gb/s to 1 Gb/s. But many users also reported general outages, regardless of the bandgap. For a few seconds it may happen that the network disconnects briefly and then reconnects. This problem occurred with both the second revision, which had the spec codes SLNJY and SLNJX, and the supposedly patched third revision, which had the spec codes SLNMH and SLMNG.

Specification code overview:

• First release I225-V: SLN9D and SLN9C
• I225-V Second Edition: SLNJY and SLNJX
• 3. I225-V Review: SLNMH and SLMNG
• I226-V first release: SRKTV and SRKTU

The Intel I226-V controller is equipped with the specification codes SRKTV and SRKTU. Due to the low distribution of this segment, there were very few, if any, reports initially. The newer I226-V-PHY has only recently been used on mainboards with the Intel 700 chipset and also on some Topton mini PCs from China. Both are in Intel Community And also in charge ASUS Support Forum Reports of outages have been officially reported. There are also many reports on Reddit (Example 1And Example 2And Example 3), which continue to multiply.

Techpowerup was able to validate the crashes

The colleagues from techpowerup have now been able to log these disconnects themselves. Windows reported the error Event ID 27 as follows: Network link not connected. The timestamp shows that the network connection is suddenly disconnected at irregular times. Sometimes after several seconds, the network connection is restored for an indefinite period of time. If some people think that this is happening within the current 2.5Gb/s link, they are wrong. In the case of techpowerup, the 1 Gb/s link was used. Colleagues also tested different Intel network drivers, but the result was identical each time.

Hardware or software problem?

As per the current state, it is not entirely clear whether the connection failures are an issue with the device itself or with the drivers. However, it is also clear that not every user of an Intel 2.5Gb/s controller experiences these issues. There are also many reports that the network connection is always stable. There are also rumors that the network connection to an Intel console is stable or not may depend on the network switch used.

Therefore, Intel should conduct further checks in order to repeat the same problem and, at best, to fix it. Of course, a fix on the software side would be desirable, ie network driver or via firmware update. There is currently no solution to this problem.