Hi all!

Recently upgraded my internet to 3Gbps (only have 2.5Gbps switches though, but I'm fine with that), but realized the ethernet port on the motherboard in my Unraid build only support 1Gbps. Figured the best thing to do would be get a PCI wired network card. Pretty quick search led me to buy the TP-Link TX401 PCIe x4 10Gbps card off Amazon, seeing a boatload of reviews directly mention "plug-and-play" compatibility with Unraid without needing to fuss about with drivers or anything complex. Currently, the "primary" PCI slot on my motherboard is occupied with a LSI00194 (8-port PCI 2.0 x8 SAS card that I use SAS->SATA breakouts on to expand my HDD count), so I plugged the TX401 into the bottom PCI port since that's the only one left that will accommodate it.

On boot, I received a slew of error messages on the command line that looked like this:

port 0000:00:1b.4: AER: Correctable error message received from 000:05:00.0

0000:05:00.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Correctable, type=Physical Layer, (Receiver ID)

0000:05:00.0: device [1d6a:04c0] error status/mask=00000001/0000e000

0000:05:00.0: [ 0] RxErr (First)

Not knowing if it would boot or not, I didn't want to risk letting it run and filling my hard drive with these logs when it clearly says it's a "correctable" error, I powered it down, took the card out and switched back to using the motherboard port for now.

I first thought maybe there was an issue with bifurcation on the PCIe lanes due to me using 2 M.2 slots and trying to use both main PCIe ports, but checking the motherboard documentation only leads me to believe that at worst, it would reduce the PCIe ports to x8, which to me seems like it would be fine since the LSI SAS card uses x8, and the TP-Link TX401 uses x4. So even if this were the case, I would expect things to still function.

I briefly looked at the Linux driver installation FAQ from TP-Link for this network card, but I've never installed any drivers in Unraid myself, and with so many people seemingly not needing to do that, I wasn't sure that was what needed doing. Here is that website: https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/3436/

I have a lot of questions, and plenty of confusion on this.

• Will this card work with my system at all?

  • If it will, what is the issue currently, and how do I fix it?

• If this card won't work, is there reason to believe a basic PCIe x1 2.5Gbps network card wouldn't work either? Totally fine to just return this card and get something more basic

I would greatly appreciate help and advice with this, as I'm a bit out of my depth at this point, but half the reason for the internet speed upgrade was for my Unraid server, so I'd obviously love to figure out how to sort this situation out. Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Here are my relevant build specs:

• Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z790M-PLUS D4

  • In the PCIEX16(G5) port: LSI00194 SAS Card

  • In M.2_1(SOCKET3) port: Crucial 500GB P3 Plus NVMe PCIe 4 SSD

  • In the M.2_2(SOCKET3) port: Samsung 1TB 980 Pro NVMe PCIe 4 SSD

  • In the PCIEX16(G4) port: where I am attempting to install the TP-Link TX401

• CPU: Intel i5-13400

Here are links to product pages, etc...:

• ASUS PRIME Z790M-PLUS D4

• TP-Link TX401

• LSI00194

pleas post a diagnostic

you may need a reltek plugin install. or user scirpt to update teh ethtool for 2.5 connecitons as noted here:
https://forums.unraid.net/topic/141349-plugin-realtek-r8125-r8126-r8168-and-r815267-drivers/#findComment-1279775

17 minutes ago, bmartino1 said:

pleas post a diagnostic

you may need a reltek plugin install. or user scirpt to update teh ethtool for 2.5 connecitons as noted here:
https://forums.unraid.net/topic/141349-plugin-realtek-r8125-r8126-r8168-and-r815267-drivers/#findComment-1279775

Didn't post them originally since without the network card plugged in, I didn't know if there'd be any useful information. Here you go.

origin_saint-server-diagnostics-20260107-2053.zip

so yes the ethtool in the diag is not showing the 2.5 negotaions

Settings for eth0:

Supported ports: [ TP ]

Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

1000baseT/Full

Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only

Supports auto-negotiation: Yes

Supported FEC modes: Not reported

Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

1000baseT/Full

Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only

Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes

Advertised FEC modes: Not reported

Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

1000baseT/Full

6 minutes ago, bmartino1 said:

so yes the ethtool in the diag is not showing the 2.5 negotaions

Settings for eth0:

Supported ports: [ TP ]

Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

1000baseT/Full

Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only

Supports auto-negotiation: Yes

Supported FEC modes: Not reported

Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

1000baseT/Full

Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only

Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes

Advertised FEC modes: Not reported

Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

1000baseT/Full

As a reminder this diagnostic was taken without the TP-Link expansion card plugged in and the cards port is 10Gbps and the motherboards is 1Gbps.

What is the fix in this case? Do I need to install one of these Realtek plugins for the driver?

4 minutes ago, OriginSaint said:

As a reminder this diagnostic was taken without the TP-Link expansion card plugged in and the cards port is 10Gbps and the motherboards is 1Gbps.

What is the fix in this case? Do I need to install one of these Realtek plugins for the driver?

depends onthe card but yes if its a realktek card you install the unraid plugin. and what lspci -v

or diag file says the drive is using and teh speeds being told to unraid.

data can be found here with a diag file.

per
https://forums.unraid.net/topic/141349-plugin-realtek-r8125-r8126-r8168-and-r815267-drivers/#findComment-1279775

you would need to run a user sciurpt plugin to add the other speed to the interface via the ethtool commands

15 minutes ago, bmartino1 said:

depends onthe card but yes if its a realktek card you install the unraid plugin. and what lspci -v

or diag file says the drive is using and teh speeds being told to unraid.

data can be found here with a diag file.

per
https://forums.unraid.net/topic/141349-plugin-realtek-r8125-r8126-r8168-and-r815267-drivers/#findComment-1279775

you would need to run a user sciurpt plugin to add the other speed to the interface via the ethtool commands

From my research the chipset doesn’t appear to be Realtek, it seems to be a “Marvell AQC113”. See review and breakdown here: https://www.servethehome.com/tp-link-10gigabit-pcie-network-adapter-mini-review-marvell-aqc113/

Does this mean the plugin drivers would not work for this card?

1 minute ago, OriginSaint said:

From my research the chipset doesn’t appear to be Realtek, it seems to be a “Marvell AQC113”. See review and breakdown here: https://www.servethehome.com/tp-link-10gigabit-pcie-network-adapter-mini-review-marvell-aqc113/

Does this mean the plugin drivers would not work for this card?

realy depends on what lspci - says teh kerneal driver in use is. aloth of manfacutres use realtek chips ... I think the realktek plugin is what you need.



otherwise the support form on that pulgin may be of futer assistnace.

The chipset of this card is an Aquantia AQC107 or AQC113 - so no Realtek driver/plugin needed.

Unraid supports both chipsets out of the box.

Maybe the card is broken or your PCIe slot has some issues...

EDIT: Under Tools, System devices you can see the used driver

[1d6a:07b1]	05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Aquantia Corp. AQtion AQC107 NBase-T/IEEE 802.3an Ethernet Controller [Atlantic 10G] (rev 02)

Edited January 8Jan 8 by Zonediver

21 minutes ago, bmartino1 said:

realy depends on what lspci - says teh kerneal driver in use is. aloth of manfacutres use realtek chips ... I think the realktek plugin is what you need.



otherwise the support form on that pulgin may be of futer assistnace.

11 minutes ago, Zonediver said:

The chipset of this card is an Aquantia AQC107 or AQC113 - so no Realtek driver/plugin needed.

Unraid supports both chipsets out of the box.

Maybe the card is broken or your PCIe slot has some issues...

EDIT: Under Tools, System devices you can see the used driver

[1d6a:07b1]	05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Aquantia Corp. AQtion AQC107 NBase-T/IEEE 802.3an Ethernet Controller [Atlantic 10G] (rev 02)

Given I'm still unsure if it's anything to do with the card or the drivers, and since it's cheap, I just ordered a TP-Link TX201 2.5Gbps card that's only PCIe x1, so it will be able to slot into one of my other 2 PCIe ports on my motherboard. When that arrives Friday, I will try that out and see where it gets me. I'll update here with my results!

Thanks to you both for the help thus far - hoping I can get it sorted so I can take advantage of this faster network speeds for transfer and remote media server streaming!

Edited January 8Jan 8 by OriginSaint

Try this:

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/118286-nvme-drives-throwing-errors-filling-logs-instantly-how-to-resolve/?do=findComment&comment=1165009

Quick update here. As mentioned before I ordered the TP-Link TX201 (2.5Gbps card) to try instead of the TX401 (10Gbps), mostly because the TX201 is a PCIe x1 card instead of needing the larger PCI lane port, and since my internet service is only 3Gbps and the switches and upstream networking hardware are only capable of 2.5Gbps anyway, I'd never see the benefit of over that speed regardless.

I installed the TX201 today in the second slot, the first x1 slot, and booted, and everything worked perfectly fine with no changes to drivers, plugins or anything of that sort. Speed test shows full 2.5Gbps download and upload speeds being received on the server, so everything looks kosher.

Since I won't see any benefit from using the TX401 anyway, I've decided to cut my losses and return it to Amazon since I've got a working setup now and will save time faffing about with the TX401 for realistically no benefit in the foreseeable future.

Thanks to everyone that chimed in!