Multiple RTL chip & a vr NICs won't link with Arris S33 Cable Modem
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Trying to build a new home and home office pfsense box, because I can't stand Xfinity/Comcast's gateway. I have Gb service down and nominally 30Mb (more like 40Mb) up.
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Brand new 2.5.0 CE encrypted ZFS install on an AMD 8 core machine with 8GB RAM and a 1TB SDD mobo is an MSI 760GMA-P34 (not the greatest, but what I have available)
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RTL 8111 family PCIe on the mobo
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RTL 8169 family on PCI
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RTL 8125b 2.5Gb on PCIe
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Dlink DFE-530TX+ 10/100Base-T (vr driver) on PCI found in back closet for grins and giggles
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None of the above will link with new Arris S33 Cable Modem on either 2.5Gb or 1Gb ports and get a DHCP address
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S33 Cable modem will link with USB3 dock on a MacBook (unknown chipset)
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S33 Cable modem DID link and work with a (since deceased/bricked) APU1which AFAIK had RTL8111E ports and was running 2.5.0 before I foolishly tried to upgrade coreboot
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The ONLY difference between the APU1 and the current AMD box is that it's a 14' cable to the workbench from the CM instead of a 3' one. I've swapped out the cable with a brand new one too, no difference. Cat5e.
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PCIe dual port RTL8125b even successfully auto-negotiated to 2500 Full-Duplex, just no apparent connection
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Putting a switch in-between the CM and the NIC doesn't appear to help matters and the NIC won't Auto-Neg correctly as WAN
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All NICs will happily connect to a 1Gb switch (various) as LAN (i.e. swap assignments and the LAN port works fine
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Tested with all cards installed, only two installed and even with mobo port disabled in BIOS
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Before anyone goes off about my choice of Modem, it's what my ISP recommends and it's properly provisioned etc. and works fine with another system.
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I have ordered an Intel 82576 dual port card (This one in fact: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074PQWQB5 ) but it's going to take a few days to arrive
But, seriously: WTH is going on? Should I try installing 2.4.something instead? I'm no novice to Ethernet, pfsense, FreeBSD, yada, yada, but I'm at the end of my knowledge here.
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This user has been carbon dated to the 8-bit era... -
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OK, so it just got REALLY weird. I just restored the most recent backup of the APU1 configuration which was from May 2019(!) - my configurations don't change much once stable.
Guess what? The WAN interface is now picking up DHCP and DHCP6 addresses on the mobo RTRL8111port. Just a diagnostic address first from the CM, and now from the ISP after a quick CM reboot.
About to try the RTL8125B card and see if we can get a 2.5Gb connection.
W. T. A. ?
Speedtest shows only 542 down, but I was expecting that on the older RTL chips.
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Did you reboot the modem between changes? The DHCP server at the ISP will hold onto MAC addresses and will only reset when you reboot the modem.
Most ISP's only allow one MAC entry per cycle. (Mine allows multiple for business connections only. I am not sure about Comcast and business.)
I haven't heard to much bad about the S33 yet.. but if past Arris modems are any clue keep it well ventilated. Arris tends to run hotter than the rest.
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@chpalmer Yeah, I rebooted the modem multiple times and tried both ports on it, same result both times. Sorry I thought that was obvious, but I see I forgot to include that. It was definitely something in the restore that did it. At this point that feels like a VooDoo explanation, but it was the only change. I was restoring the config backup in preparation for the Intel card's arrival.
Oh and NUT is now happily complaining it can't find the UPS, since I don't have a long enough USB cable...
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So now the RTL8125B Dual Port card is not being recognized. Could the restore have forced an older re driver?
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@daplumber said in Multiple RTL chip & a vr NICs won't link with Arris S33 Cable Modem:
RTL8125B
Going back to an earlier config would not mess with drivers. My guess on that is bios related if pfsense detected it before.. maybe an interrupt conflict..??
You didn't have to load different drivers for it to get it to work before did you?
I have a Motorola MB8611 modem with a 2.5gbps interface ready to go here as soon as I find an interface for my router to mate it to so Im watching your progress closely..
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@chpalmer Well I’m going to try just the dual rtl8125b PCIe 1x card by itself and the mobo port disabled and see if it’s still recognized.
How do I verify the version of the re driver?
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@chpalmer Nope. Even with only the Dual Port RTL8125B installed and everything else disabled I’m BIOS - Com port, HD Audio, 6Gb SATA, 8111 NIC, etc. The 8125B ports are not recognized by the re driver, but are in the PCI listing.
Before restore it was as in original post. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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The RTL8125 NIC should not be recognised by the in kernel driver at all, I have no idea how you seems to see it link.
It requires the newer driver from Realtek, see this.Steve
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@stephenw10 Yeah, I wasn't expecting the RTL8125b Dual Port to be recognized on the clean and fresh 2.5.0 install, but that's what happened. Does a 2.5.0 install pull in realtek-re-kmod by default?
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This user has been carbon dated to the 8-bit era... -
So some more data points:
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The Intel 82576 card seems capable of an honest simultaneous 1Gb through both ports at the same time. Not surprising, but gratifying. Since I can get one with a heatsink off Amazon for $26 I now have a new Goto Dual Port Gb card. Nice. It's what looks like a reference design, and it includes some chunky looking (by modern standards anyway) surge protectors, so that's nice.
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After loading the realtek-re-kmod package the RTL8125B is recognized but is back to it's weird behavior:
- Auto-negotiates to 2500 FD correctly, but gets 0.0.0.0 from DHCP, ditto for IPV6
BUT! A Clue! I noticed that there was a mysterious second IP being configured on the igb LAN port for no apparent good reason.
Could there be a pointer problem or some other bug in realtek-re-kmod that's pointing to the incorrect port?
Who should I talk to about this? I have a narrow window where I'm willing to do some testing with some dummy networks. That's all I can offer since debugging driver code isn't really in my wheelhouse. I'm also willing to set up regular user access to this system over the internet for poking and prodding.
Until this gets fixed I can't really say if Realtek have upped their hardware game with the RTL8125b. It does seem to be the only 2.5GBASE-T dual port card out there that doesn't break the bank, too I think there's at least some interest?
With switches like the QNAP QSW-1105-5T and even the Netgear GS110MX coming down to sane-ish pricing for the home prosumer, NBase-T seems to have legs.
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@daplumber said in Multiple RTL chip & a vr NICs won't link with Arris S33 Cable Modem:
Does a 2.5.0 install pull in realtek-re-kmod by default?
Nope, it does not.
If it's a driver problem it should be reported upstream to FreeBSD or possibly directly to Realtek since that driver comes from them, it's not part of the FreeBSD source tree.
If you're able to test you should try running that NIC and FreeBSD 12-stable. If it still fails there in the same way then report upstream.
Steve
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@stephenw10 Is there a HOWTO on reporting this upstream? Not exactly my wheelhouse.
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The first step would be to replicate it in FreeBSD. Then if that still looks wrong I would post about it in the FreeBSD forum to see if anyone else has hit. Then I'd probably ask there about reporting it but it would be done here: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/
Steve
