Linux 2.5Gbe Ethernet Networking issues for Chia

My 5950x can sustainably make plots in under 1250 seconds in Ubuntu, using 128GB Ram and a single Rocket Sabrent 4 2TB.

But!! My motherboard uses a Realtek R8125 chipset for the 2.5Gbe Ethernet and this is not supported in Ubuntu! I spent days (literally) trying to install drivers to get Ubuntu to read this device but couldn’t get it to work. I once managed to get it to show up in Network settings as 2500MB/s but it never worked for actual transfers.

This is a real blocker because at 1200ish seconds I produce plots faster than I can offload them to my farmer machine, 2 feet away.

Did anyone else encounter this and solve it ?

I am using the Aorus Master x570 motherboard.

I believe most use a temp disk and have some sort of script that moves the plots off that said temp disk every once in a while.

Get a 1-2TB cheap SATA SSD, mount it on your plotter and set your plot destination to that drive. Then write a script to rsync plots from the SSD on the plotter to the HDD on the farmer. Even at 1GbE, you should transfer a plot in ~15 mins. This will create a buffer that should produce the least amount of impact to your plotting process. Use -w in madmax if the copy to the SSD interferes too much with the next plot.

I don’t know anything about this specific problem, so no help there sorry.

In general, I gave up on copying plots, just takes too long, and prefer to just move hdd’s around.

using a staging drive with a script to copy is an option, but it basically only delays the problem.

what kind of speeds are you getting? hdd write speeds on the receiving end might also be a limiting factor

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Did you try a newer ubuntu version? Which revision of the mainboard do you have? In which country are you? The 2.5G NIC in your mainboard will allow you to transfer files at about 270 mb/s after overhead.

Do you have empty PCI 8x/16x slots?

Thanks for this suggestion. I have thought about it. Moving disks would be an easier plan, but - I got a lot of SAS drives quite cheap and they are in the farmer machine. I don’t have SAS controller in my main plotting rig. So I could only do this if I purchased another SAS HBA for my plotter. And with the speed of plotting being this high I would end up moving a disk every day or two. That becomes a lot of activity actually.

Hey Chia Switzerland.

I am in the US.

I have tried Ubuntu 16, 18, 20 and 21. None have driver support working for r8125 Realtek 2.5Gbe Ethernet . And I cannot get described patches to work.

I do have some extra PCIe slots (currently pounding out some ETH via GPU but I could move them)

You are thinking I should buy another Network card?

Thing is this isn’t fast enough to keep up with production .I would end up needing two external drives, one uploading to the farmer and one downloading from the plotter at the same time, and constantly rotating them. And even then I would produce plots faster than I can move them (at 1Gb download speeds).

Which exact version of Ubuntu 21 did you try? I cannot believe that they have not the driver for a 2 year old mainboard. Try you try Desktop AND server? If not try server: Get Ubuntu Server | Download | Ubuntu

Also check your network settings. Any chance you use a fixed ip address on windows and linux is auto and since you configured the port in your router to not get an auto ip, you cannot connect to your router?

Did you check the config of linux if the NIC is really not recognised and its not a simple network configuration problem?

I have the same mobo, I never could get the the 2.5Gb to work, turned it off in the bios because it was causing BSOD in windows.

Always found 2.5Gbe tech to be a little strange, because it isn’t compatible with my ethernet switches, or any other machine I own. So never turned it on again.

I’m fairly certain that 2.5Gbe does not do 2500MB/s, maybe 250MB/s on a good day, but HDD drives can only do 150MB/s anyway.

The best I could get on 1Gbe ethernet was 110MB/s, but this with Linux/rsync/arc-four encryption, which isn’t possible anymore… but maybe there is other software you could use to speed up transfers on 1Gbe ethernet.

My current setup is to run my plotting machine as a remote harvester and then physically move the drive when its full.

I mean, I have a couple 10Gbe nics, but when the HDDs are so slow, whats the point?

Does you Switch support 2.5G or 10G? If not, 2.5G will not work. Even if you use 10G SFP+ Modules, not all of them support 2.5G. Some do only 1G and 10G, and do not support 2.5G or 5G. Also the Switch (OS / Firmware) needs to support the Speed. If the Transceiver supports 2.5G but the Switch does not, e.g., only 1G and 10G, there is no link. Also some switches and routers will be to be set up to advertise anything above 1G to the NICs.

18 TB WD Gold does like 270 mb/s…

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Oooh, did not know that… *looks up price*:fearful: :weary: :rofl:

My switch supports 1Gbe! Boom! :muscle:

You’ve lost me, I don’t use 2.5Gbe because nothing I own works with it.
When I need to transfer large amount of files to my server I direct connect two 10Gbe cards or physically move the drives.

Google SFP+ Modules or SFP+ Tranceivers. They can be used in certain switches which allow you more flexibility.

That’s why your NIC won’t transfer 2.5G to it…

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Yes, lol. Thats why I don’t use 2.5Gbe.

Seriously what do you use to farm? External HDDs will die relatively fast due to overheating and Manufacturers will decline RMA after reading out “Time run” and “Spin Ups” via SMART because consumers drives are not meant to run 24/7 the whole year. Also it takes forever to move plots to consumer grade drives and if you plan to get a lot of plots, the costs for taking additional space in a room, additional external storage housing, additional cables, USB hubs, HBA cards will eat up any cost advantage you will have with small (external) drives in the long run. Not to mention only entreprise drives like WD Gold come with 5 year warranty which you can also redeem if the hdd breaks after running 24/7.

Don’t you guys always claim to be in this for the long run? In the long run your HDDs will be all dead.

Hi Chia. Away from the machine right now give exact answer in which version but think it was 21.04 from memory.

Amazingly, this issue around no support for r8125 is widely known. It’s been discussed a lot online. I see chat about it from early 2020 still. There are some “fixes” but I have not managed to make them stick - hence asking here.

The network card appears as “unclaimed”. And I am very sure this is the same problem others are discussing.

My machines have a 1Gb link (different ports) and I can get that working. But the 2.5Gb port out of the Aorus Master is a no-go under Linux (and only Linux - Windows is perfect)

The Gigabyte Board has a Thunderbolt Header. Just get a Gigabyte Thunderbolt Card and an external 10G Thunderbolt Network card (e.g. from Qnap). Problem solved.

You’re kinda hijacking someone else’s post here. Maybe you want to start a separate thread about what people are using for drives. I’d be happy to answer your there… maybe. :laughing: