[SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

weirdNox · 2018-07-23 01:04:49

Hello there! First of all, I'm sorry if this is not the correct place to post about this.

I have been using Arch Linux for almost 2 years now, and lately I've been noticing that the progress bar of the download when updating packages sometimes hanged on my desktop.

Today, I was using my laptop and as I needed to copy some data over the network, I connected it over Ethernet instead of using WiFi, which I had never done before. To my surprise, the speed was drastically slower using the wired connection! And the hangs I was having on my desktop were also present.

In order to test it more, I started downloading test files from https://speed.hetzner.de/. Downloading the 100MB file on Windows (I have dual boot) was also faster using WiFi, but not by much: it was something like 15s wireless and 20s wired. I assume my wireless NIC is better than my wired NIC.

On Linux, however, it is not like this at all. Downloading the same file using WiFi was also 15s, but when I started using Ethernet, the average speed went down to ~500KB/s, and the estimate was 3minutes! The following two images show the wired and wireless (respectively) throughput over time and you can clearly see the hangs I was noticing before. While the wired graph only shows a part of the download, the wireless graph shows 2 different downloads of the 100MB file:
https://s8.postimg.cc/xishj7fwl/wired.png
https://s8.postimg.cc/576xlko45/wireless.png

On the Wiki, there is a section about these network cards and turning IOMMU on, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. I'm also using the r8168 module after testing with the one that came with the kernel (r8169).

Here is the lspci -v output:

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 8260 (rev 3a)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 129
        Memory at df200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
        Kernel modules: iwlwifi

04:00.1 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
        Subsystem: CLEVO/KAPOK Computer RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 126
        I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
        Memory at df114000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Memory at df110000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: r8168
        Kernel modules: r8169, r8168

My laptop is a Clevo build, if you want any more information I'll be happy to provide it.

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by weirdNox (2018-07-23 23:49:15)

jasonwryan · 2018-07-23 01:56:08

Read the Code of Conduct and only post thumbnails http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cod … s_and_code

Moving to NC...

seth · 2018-07-23 07:14:09

ethtool <interface>

weirdNox · 2018-07-23 16:48:06

jasonwryan: Sorry about the full sized images!

seth: Here you go

Settings for enp4s0f1:
        Supported ports: [ TP ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
                                1000baseT/Full 
        Supported pause frame use: No
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Supported FEC modes: Not reported
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 
                                1000baseT/Full 
        Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
        Speed: 100Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: Twisted Pair
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: internal
        Auto-negotiation: on
        MDI-X: Unknown
        Supports Wake-on: pumbg
        Wake-on: d
        Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
                               drv probe ifdown ifup
        Link detected: yes

Also, I noticed that when I am connected through my VPN, it doesn't have those hangs where the speed comes down to 0, maintaining ~1MB/s.

I'll try to test this machine on other network as it is not clear if it could be a problem with the router (it would be strange as Windows is able to get better speeds, but...).

I'm going to download the latest Arch ISO and test the speed there.

Last edited by weirdNox (2018-07-23 16:49:56)

seth · 2018-07-23 17:17:18

Is the NIC not connected?

Anyway, https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob … /NEWS#L294 ?

weirdNox · 2018-07-23 23:48:10

seth wrote:

Is the NIC not connected?

The NIC was connected... Is there anything wrong with the output?

seth wrote:

Anyway, https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob … /NEWS#L294 ?

This solved the problem of those hangs and it becomes on par with Windows!

At first, I was testing with wget, which was giving me slow but steady downloads, but then I tried with Firefox and the speed was much faster, so I assume it does multi-threaded downloads. I'm now able to achieve 12MB/s download, in a 100Mbps connection, so it is great.

Do you recommend continuing with the r8168 driver or should I revert to r8169? I've reverted and don't notice any change at all.

Also, how did you know about the solution you proposed? Have you seen other people complaining about it? I would have never found it if it was not for your help, so thanks a lot!

circleface · 2018-07-24 01:31:46

weirdNox wrote:

Also, how did you know about the solution you proposed? Have you seen other people complaining about it? I would have never found it if it was not for your help, so thanks a lot!

See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=238892

seth · 2018-07-24 06:47:10

Is there anything wrong with the output?

Ftr, despite saying "Link detected" there's no link partner record in the output. That's apparently not necessarily "wrong" - more eye brow raising ;-)

weirdNox · 2018-07-25 20:50:22

circleface wrote:

See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=238892

Thanks! I wasn't able to find which package update caused the problem because, initially, I didn't give it much attention as I thought it was caused by my ISP. It's a luck to have you guys with your eagle eyes in here!

seth wrote:

Ftr, despite saying "Link detected" there's no link partner record in the output. That's apparently not necessarily "wrong" - more eye brow raising ;-)

Ah, I see, I don't know why those records vanished, but oh well...

Anyway, thanks again, the fix has been working great, both on my desktop and on my laptop! The wiki and the forums are a goldmine, I'll try to give back where I'm able to

Arch Linux

#1 2018-07-23 01:04:49

[SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#2 2018-07-23 01:56:08

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#3 2018-07-23 07:14:09

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#4 2018-07-23 16:48:06

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#5 2018-07-23 17:17:18

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#6 2018-07-23 23:48:10

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#7 2018-07-24 01:31:46

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#8 2018-07-24 06:47:10

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

#9 2018-07-25 20:50:22

Re: [SOLVED] Very unstable throughput with RTL8111/8168/8411

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