NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi there,

Just upgraded my harwired CAT5e home network using all "Plexus" brand (cheapo eBuyer) gigabit cards and a "Plexus" brand gigabit switch.

My NASLite-2 CDD installation dosent show up as a gigabit connection on my new gigabit switch, despite having a Realtek RTL8169 Gigabit Nic installed (I have also tried a Netgear GA311 gigabit card in the NASlite box but it produces the same config results).

All my windows boxes (XP & Vista) show up as connected at a gig on the switch my Clarkconnect box shows up as a 10/100 as it should do.

The NASlite box runs NASLite-2 CDD VERSION v2.06 08-2007 on an old HP Vectra (Vei8?) P3 600 with 512 ram and a 320 gig H/D.

My config:

• eth0: Identified chip type is 'RTL8169'.
• eth0: RTL8169 at 0xe0800100, 00:b0:c2:01:67:2e, IRQ 10
• eth0: Auto-negotiation Enabled.
• eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:B0:C2:01:67:2E
• inet addr:192.168.2.201 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
• UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
• RX packets:28094056 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
• TX packets:15659461 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
• collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
• RX bytes:1106581030 (1.0 GiB) TX bytes:3585464142 (3.3 GiB)
• Interrupt:10 Base address:0x100

From looking at others posted setups I am missing this at line 4:
* eth0: 1000Mbps Full-duplex operation.

Is there something I need to do to make NASlite "see" the gigabit NIC or is it some kind of compatability issue.

I am currently transferring 6.3gb of data from a Vista box to the nas and it it showing an abysmal 3.1 MB/sec transfer rate

Any and all help greatly appreciated

Phat

Try a different port in the switch (with NASLite still running).

Thanks for a quick reply, just tried it an no difference whatsoever

It sounds very much like you've got an IRQ problem if you're transferring data across so slowly. Have you disabled *every* motherboard device you're not using? (i.e. LPT1, COM1, USB, audio, onboard NIC if any, etc).

Does the same cabling you are now using between the switch and NASLite box work fine between the switch and one of the windows machines?

@ superboss, it's only a short run of cable (5 foot) from the switch to the Nas box I have tried replacing it with other cat5e cables but to no avail.

@ NickC, I can't remember exactly what I disabled when I originally put it together some time ago don't remember disabling all those though. Trying to find my KVM cables to put a "head" on it it and examine the bios settings.

Thanks very much both will report back with my findings.

Make sure the cable you replaced the current one with is indeed 100% working for gigabit. For instance using a crossover cable would make it impossible to run in gigabit speed. Saying that, I have also had issues with gigabit nics being forced into 100Mbps on my NASLite box but switching the port or rebooting has solved these issues on my setup.

Phat,

I to have the GA311 nic and it shows up on the fourth line as you suggested.

eth0: Identified chip type is 'RTL8169s/8110s'.
eth0: RTL8169 at 0xde807000, 00:14:6c:81:de:64, IRQ 11
eth0: Auto-negotiation Enabled.
eth0: 1000Mbps Full-duplex operation.

Sometimes my nas will boot as 100 and a power off and on of the swith does the trick for me to get 1000

Gigabit uses all four pairs in the CAT5 cable. For short runs you should be able to get away with using it but I would recommend using CATe or better yet CAT6. It shouldn't matter if the cable is a cross over since all modern NICs and switches are MDI/MDIx compliant and just switch the connections in the chip.

The cables must be properly wired or it will just fall back to 100TX speeds.

Mike

Thanks for all the responses sadly despite trying everything suggested still no luck on the switch recognizing the gigabit card in the Nas box as anything over 100 .
Speeds have improved dramatically though as the drive I was transferring data from has suffered total failure so it must have been dying for a while, I guess this accounts for the very poor initial speeds.
10meg seems to be about the norm now which is a big improvement, would be nice to see it running at a gig though.
Could it be the old Hewlett Packard mobo I am using (robbed from an old Vei8) perhaps it just isn't compatable with the gig Nic?

Current config:
* eth0: Identified chip type is 'RTL8169s/8110s'.
* eth0: RTL8169 at 0xe0800100, 00:0f:b5:09:a9:f7, IRQ 11
* eth0: Auto-negotiation Enabled.
* eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0F:B5:09:A9:F7
* inet addr:192.168.2.201 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
* UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
* RX packets:135 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
* TX packets:68 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
* collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
* RX bytes:15519 (15.1 KiB) TX bytes:8234 (8.0 KiB)
* Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100

Regards

Phat

Finally..

* eth0: Identified chip type is 'RTL8169s/8110s'.
* eth0: RTL8169 at 0xe0800100, 00:0f:b5:09:a9:f7, IRQ 11
* eth0: Auto-negotiation Enabled.
* eth0: 1000Mbps Full-duplex operation.
* eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0F:B5:09:A9:F7
* inet addr:192.168.2.201 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
* UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
* RX packets:22 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
* TX packets:25 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
* collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
* RX bytes:1503 (1.4 KiB) TX bytes:2936 (2.8 KiB)
* Interrupt:11 Base address:0x100

Went through all your tips again from scatch:
"Brand new boxed" cat5e cable
Reset bios to default then back in to disable all unnecessary items IRQ COM etc.
Shift NIC to different PCI slot
While box running shift ports on switch
Now it registers 1000Mbps Full-duplex operation on every boot

speed however is something else...
Down 9meg
Up 25meg (inconsistant)

Many thanks

Phat