Unstable Ethernet negotiation on Intel i226-V rev 4 (Aoostar WTR Pro, Ryzen 7 5825U)

[dapu]

Hi everyone,

I’m experiencing unstable Ethernet link negotiation on a small Aoostar WTR Pro mini-PC (Ryzen 7 5825U) running Proxmox VE.
The onboard NIC is Intel i226-V rev 4.

Symptoms:

Link speed frequently drops between 2.5 GbE ↔ 100 Mb - 2.5Gb is only stable without any traffic
Behavior is inconsistent — sometimes the link stays stable for a while (1 Gb), then randomly renegotiates.
Using the same cable and switch port, Windows 11 with official Intel drivers works perfectly fine — stable 2.5 GbE, tested with iperf3 for long sessions, no drops.
Environment details:

Proxmox VE: 9
Kernel: 6.14* [edit: switched to 6.17* - the same issue ]
NIC: Intel i226-V rev 4
router: Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway Fiber (2.5 GbE capable)
Tried so far:
Disabled and re-enabled auto-negotiation via ethtool
Forced 2.5 GbE with ethtool -s eno1 speed 2500 duplex full autoneg off
Checked cables and ports (all tested and working fine on Windows)
Adjusted BIOS settings related to power etc...
Disabled EEE
Updated Proxmox and kernel to latest available version

The issue seems specific to the Linux/Proxmox driver or power management behavior.
Has anyone experienced similar instability with i226-V on Proxmox or found a reliable workaround (driver options, kernel parameters, or firmware update)?

EDIT: Interesting - fresh install (6.17) on different nvme is handling kind of forced on router 2.5 Gb, previously 2.5Gb had several thousands droped packages

iperf3 -c 192.168.50.150 -t 30 -P 1
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-30.00  sec  8.21 GBytes  2.35 Gbits/sec  892             sender
[  5]   0.00-30.00  sec  8.20 GBytes  2.35 Gbits/sec                  receiver

[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-30.00  sec  3.28 GBytes   940 Mbits/sec  125             sender
[  5]   0.00-30.01  sec  3.28 GBytes   939 Mbits/sec                  receiver

--
DP

 

[mkrijtenberg]

I've experienced the same issues. Thanks to your post I found the solution. My WTR Pro kept dying when I was transferring my data from another NAS to this one. Turns out the Intel NIC has some kind of power saving feature which interferes while copying large amounts of data? Anyway. This worked for me:

Edit your interfaces file:

nano /etc/network/interfaces

Add this post-up line:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface nic0 inet manual

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
        address 192.168.2.5/24
        gateway 192.168.2.1
        bridge-ports nic0
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0
        # Disable EEE
        post-up /usr/sbin/ethtool --set-eee nic0 eee off

I also ended up adding this line to grub (pcie_aspm=off), to prevent sleep state:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet pcie_aspm=off"

Save your changes and

update-grub

And reboot

 

[dapu]

Still errors - even on forced 1Gb connection - 2.5 Gb is totaly unstable/unusable

root@UCG-Fiber:~# iperf3 -c 192.168.50.150 -t 15
Connecting to host 192.168.50.150, port 5201
[  5] local 192.168.50.1 port 53426 connected to 192.168.50.150 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   115 MBytes   962 Mbits/sec   24    583 KBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   112 MBytes   944 Mbits/sec    5    411 KBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   111 MBytes   934 Mbits/sec    0    580 KBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   111 MBytes   929 Mbits/sec    1    566 KBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   112 MBytes   942 Mbits/sec    3    560 KBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec   111 MBytes   931 Mbits/sec    1    544 KBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   112 MBytes   945 Mbits/sec    6    536 KBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    5    527 KBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   111 MBytes   934 Mbits/sec    1    513 KBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   113 MBytes   945 Mbits/sec    3    506 KBytes       
[  5]  10.00-11.00  sec   112 MBytes   940 Mbits/sec    3    501 KBytes       
[  5]  11.00-12.00  sec   112 MBytes   935 Mbits/sec    3    477 KBytes       
[  5]  12.00-13.00  sec   113 MBytes   946 Mbits/sec    1    472 KBytes       
[  5]  13.00-14.00  sec   111 MBytes   934 Mbits/sec    1    464 KBytes       
[  5]  14.00-15.00  sec   112 MBytes   942 Mbits/sec    6    441 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-15.00  sec  1.64 GBytes   940 Mbits/sec   63             sender
[  5]   0.00-15.01  sec  1.64 GBytes   938 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.
root@UCG-Fiber:~#