GA-MA790FXT-UD5P: On-board ethernet problems in Windows 7 & Linux...

[stuart]

I have noticed a transient problem with both of the UD5P boards I've owned under both Linux and Windows 7: using the primary (lower) on-board ethernet connecter, it can take Linux several attmpts to gain a DHCP lease (reporting "lost carrier") and Windows can lose the ability to resolve network shares and can think that it has no external network connectivity.

Other machines connected to the same switch are unaffected, I've changed the switch port and the cable used - and, indeed, when this problem is happening I can switch the cable to the other on-board ethernet connector and all is fine, but is then again not working when I change back to the first.  The upper on-board ethernet port has always been fine.  The lower will recover eventually, but this can take seconds or minutes.

Given that the cabling, switch, and network are fine but that this occurs on two different UD5P boards which are affected when running different OS (suggesting that this isn't a driver problem), it looks to me as if there's some firmware- or hardware- related issue here...

[Beekeeper]

does the same happen under Win XP or Vista ?
what are: your MB's bios, LAN drivers version ?

[stuart]

After performing the BIOS upgrade again using FLASHSPI.exe from DOS, all of these problems has disappeared.  After further testing, all of the hardware & software problems I've encountered seem to be as a result of using the Gigabyte @BIOS tool to perform a BIOS upgrde from (a legitimate, Technet) 64bit Windows 7 installation.  When the upgrade is performed from Windows, these problems return.  Upgrade from DOS, and everything is fine.

[oggmonster]

Yeah as a rule I never upgrade BIOS via windows (regardless of motherboard make.) I find gigabytes inbuilt flash utility (F11 at first screen I think?) to be flawless + quick

[stuart]

G'ah! It's still happening, but no longer all the time now.  After loading Windows 7, a reboot into Linux causes the NIC to again become very unreliable (constantly reporting carrier dropped and very low transfer rates) and triggers the APIC problem (although I also powered down an eSATA drive), but powering the machine off completely before starting Linux works correctly.

This is an improvement, since before I upgraded the BIOS from DOS this bad behaviour would occur on every boot, and the NIC would be unreliable even from a cold-boot in Linux or Windows.

It makes be think that the BIOS isn't completely resetting the state of the machine on reboot - what else could trigger these issues?

[Beekeeper]

do these problems only happen under win 7 and linux and under win xp or vista it's OK ?
try bios F7 from gigabyte site

[Tomasu]

I've recently started seeing this problem after months of no issues. It started about a week ago, I assumed it was a ethernet driver issue, but the BIOS's own nic testing features starts acting strange (seeing shorts and open wires, where there isn't, I've tried several cables, all of which worked fine a week ago).

I had been using the second (lower) ethernet port (for no real reason), and once the issue crept up, I tried using the first (top) ethernet port and it worked for a time (a few hours?), and then it too started acting odd.

Eventually I loose all connectivity. It started out as GbE failing to negotiate and falling back to 100BaseTX, then it falls back to 100BaseT (half duplex), then 10BaseT (half duplex), and then finally one port will just not work at all, and I have to try the other (I assume both will eventually fail).

I've just updated to the newest bios (F6g, I'm assuming its the latest, as it was released after F7), and I still have the problem.

[Tomasu]

I've updated to bios F7, it hasn't fixed the issue.

[Tomasu]

I've also since tried F5 and F3M, none seem to fix the problem.

[stuart]

After numerous BIOS upgrades and downgrades, and moving different pieces of hardware in and out and around, the problem still remains.  It happens under various different Linux distributions using a variety of 2.6 kernels, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

I'm (relatively) lucky that only the lower port is affected... as yet, the upper port on mine works fine.

The interesting observation is that this is my second MA790FXT-UD5P board, the first being sent back for replacement.  This first board also had the same problem - although if anything the lower NIC was somewhat more reliable.

Disappointingly, then I reported this issue to Gigabyte they dismissed as as something they were unable to reproduce

I'm wondering whether this is a BIOS issue, or actually a physical manufacturing issue... are the traces connecting the physical connector to the board itself failing?

[Tomasu]

After numerous BIOS upgrades and downgrades, and moving different pieces of hardware in and out and around, the problem still remains.  It happens under various different Linux distributions using a variety of 2.6 kernels, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

I'm (relatively) lucky that only the lower port is affected... as yet, the upper port on mine works fine.

The interesting observation is that this is my second MA790FXT-UD5P board, the first being sent back for replacement.  This first board also had the same problem - although if anything the lower NIC was somewhat more reliable.

Disappointingly, then I reported this issue to Gigabyte they dismissed as as something they were unable to reproduce

I'm wondering whether this is a BIOS issue, or actually a physical manufacturing issue... are the traces connecting the physical connector to the board itself failing?

If it helps any, I managed to fix my issue. After numerous re flashings, went back to F3, then back up to F7, and it seemed to work. My two ethernet ports are working again. I can't really explain it. Somehow the flashing process isn't actually happening correctly, but due to the backup, even if you corrupt the main bios, the board boots, so you think nothing of it since the flash tool said everything was fine. Or that's what I'm assuming now.

[jallis71]

I have had the same problem. Mine is always after the machine wakes from sleep. Some times the NIC wakes and sometimes it doesn't. I have to switch to the other NIC to continue or reboot( shutdown and restart).It happens in XP Pro, Vista( 64) and Win7 Pro(64). Right now I use BIOS F8C. I have emailed GIGABYTE about the problem and am waiting for a replay.

[stuart]

Let us know how you get on with that - everything I've reported to Gigabyte has been swiftly punted back with a "can't reproduce", even when I've explained that some of the problems are transient or seem to occur over time.

Very frustrating...