Trying to configure settings on a new installed ipFire box, on HP ThinClient T610 plus.
So added a new PCI-e network card for second NIC, which had Realtek chipset.
After two months of partially working on box, the green network which Realtek chipset card was connected, suddenly stopped working, and had to restart the ipFire-Box to continue working.
As I continued working on it, the problem was coming more often, until time that the ipFire-Box was hanged up with no response, and even after restart could not make green network work.
I could not find what was the problem, I had no error message on ipFire-Box, so day by day when I had time to spend and find the problem by checking cables, network switches, patchcord, anything.
So, after had been braked my brain, I supposed that could be a hardware incompatibility with ThinClient and ipFire, and decided to replace it with pfSense, which one is to difficult for my knowledge, and after have installed it and configured network, restarting it had an error message saying something about “re0” card, which was …Realtek card!!!
Looked for similar messages online, and found a lot of forums, that users suggested to “stay away from Realtek Cards”.
I’m writing this thread for anyone that could have similar problem, and of course I have already ordered a knew card, but with…NO Realtek chipset.
Im not sure if the realtek card is the problem. I run many and they are a bit cpu hungry compared to Intel cards. But other users report problems with Intel e1000e nics which run also absolute stable here…
I would search for PCIe power save functions like ASPM in Bios/uEFI that sometimes crash nic chips.
I’m afraid that “Thin Client T610 plus” does not have similar settings in bios. Also, until I setup ipFire with the settings for my needs, and to learn how to do this, I was working over two months on it by making a temporary network so that can check everything before go on and set ipfire-Box as firewall-proxy (MiM) on my home network.
So if it need a lot of cpu, then I’ll have no luck with a dual NIC card (I ordered one, tomorrow it will be on box) which probably need more cpu power than a simple one, after install and test it I’ll reply here by commenting about results.
We’ll see…may you’re right. Anywhere I hope my new card to work, may be it’s really a hardware incompatibility, who knows???