which intel?

[zinneken]

I'm starting to get annoyed by the seed instability and fluctuations of my nas4free. Onboard realtek I believe.

So in searching a cheap intel NIC I stumbled across a brand Winyao, more particularly their WY546T2. Wen something sounds too cheap to be real, it often is.

Can anyone confirm whether this NIC is indeed an intel chip, and whether it will perform with intel speed and reliability or with realtek speed and reliability? Thanks for your advice and comments!

[apollo567]

Do you really need a NIC for PCI/PCI-X bus or one for PCI Express Bus (PCIe) ?

[zinneken]

Do you really need a NIC for PCI/PCI-X bus or one for PCI Express Bus (PCIe) ?

Mobo can take both, it's a question about the price, unless there is a reason not to take PCI/PCI-X?

[apollo567]

AS PCIe is currently state of the art und PCI/PCI-X is legacy, this might be an explanation for the cheaper price. So if you have an PCIe slot, I would always prefer it.
So try it as it is not the biggest investment orbuy an origianl Intel controller, which costs only a few bucks extra

[b0ssman]

do not buy a pci card.

a dual port card could transfer 200 mbyte/sec.

however on normal boards the theoretical max pci speed is 133 mbyte/sec

buy a pcie card.

[zinneken]

Thanks for explaining! I was looking for a cheap way to get intel. But from this info, will have to wait till the budget's there.

[b0ssman]

the Intel® Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter are dirt cheap.

[zinneken]

the Intel® Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter are dirt cheap.

all depends on what's cheap of course. They're roughly 30 euro including shipping, I'd need 10~15 euro including shipping.

[b0ssman]

http://www.servershop24.de/komponenten/ ... /a-103695/

[zinneken]

Thanks b0ssman, but that is more then double the price I wish to afford, excluding shipping. Great site though, and they do have some others on there, but the shipping (europe, not germany) always kills it.

[hellokevin11]

I called my buddy, he says the winyao uses a consumer grade chip vs the intel pro chip.

This is basically enthusiast motherboard chips.

It will work just fine. He orders them from deal extreme for $15-20

[b0ssman]

You could also check eBay.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[zinneken]

I called my buddy, he says the winyao uses a consumer grade chip vs the intel pro chip.

This is basically enthusiast motherboard chips.

It will work just fine. He orders them from deal extreme for $15-20

Thanks! Would this card with consumer grade intel chip yield better networking copying to N4F compared to the onboard realtek (see signature for the number)? What improvement could I expect and is it worth it/noticeable?

[hellokevin11]

I think someone more qualified should answer. I don't know exactly why intel nic is superior.

I can only relate to you my personal experiences.

I had to put intel pros in all of my machines, as the realtek chips performed poorly.

I had speed dropoff issues, sustained gigabit speed did not occur. Transfer would drop to a slow rate over a predictable amount of time, and it was consistent.

I also had problems with the cards not linking at 1000mbit. They would link at 100, or not at duplex.

It wasn't the wires, even though I changed them all. changing the wires cost me over $80, and I saw the same speed issues.

Even forcing the cards to 1000 duplex in the hardware settings did not work, the speeds were poor, but not terrible. The average user would never notice, but then again we are not average users
browsing the internet.

So I upgraded everything to Intel pro cards. I waited for a cheap price on ebay and bought them in a big lot. I paid about $12 each for PCi-e pro 1000 cards.

With intel cards I always had full duplex 1000, without ever having to manually set their settings. I've never had one hang, or freeze.

Now I also have 3-4 workstations, with realtek based chips. I have experienced:

Nic fail to initiate on boot
Had the nic completely die, and need to reboot
"internet connectivity issue" yellow bang

Meanwhile the intel nic machines hum along, on the same managed gigabit switch!

If that level of unreliability happens in windows,which is realtek lan's home territory, then using it in an OS designed to not be restarted
very often surely must encounter problems. And I am almost certain those problems are because the chip is supported by components (capacitors, etc)
that the motherboard manufacturer sources.

I think this is why some people have no issues with realtek as their board is of good quality, with good components.
I also think this is why people have terrible problems, as the cheap $40 motherboards can have absolutely bottom end, sub standard out of tolerance
support components.

The intel pro cards are cheap only because everyone in IT uses them, so there's a surplus. The new, retail box cost of the PT 1000 is $195.00

So you're comparing a $195 industry card to a $3 per chip (in quantity) realtek chip.

The intel card depreciates in value due to market economics, but the realtek starts it's life as a cheap $3-4 chip.

[b0ssman]

some people get ok results from realtek. others experience problems.

read up on this about the major difference between them.

http://wiki.ipfire.org/en/hardware/passivenics

[zinneken]

Thanks for these comments!

[STAMSTER]

Winayo seem to be really good cards for the price! My friend got 4 port Winayo PCIe card based on Intel i350 SERVER chipset and it works great for his ESXi server.
I believe if it works out of the box (i.e. not a manufacturing defect or similiar DOA) card will work just fine as it would be "full" Intel product. Winayo takes those chips from Intel anyway, they just have their own China factory and assembling on their own.

I happen to grab 2 Intel GT cards (both PCI and PCIe), so I give up ordering that Winayo server card with 4 ports. But, I certanlly would if it was't luck with ordering Intel GT's.