Has anyone with a Realtek RTL8168 NIC had slower download speeds on Linux compared to Windows? Getting around 200-300Mbps lower than Windows consistently, most noticeable on Steam downloads sitting around 500Mbps vs nearly 900Mbps on Windows.
I've tried Garuda before along with several other distros and the issue follows across all of them so it seems driver related. Already tried the Steam HTTP2 fix and TCP buffer tweaks but no improvement. The TCP changes actually made things significantly worse dropping speeds to around 10Mbps.
Looking for anyone who has actually solved this with the RTL8168 specifically
As I understand it, the driver in use (kernel) is the r8169;
But the r8168 is the one you should be using.
sudo apt update && sudo apt install r8168-dkms
echo "blacklist r8169" | sudo sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-r8169.conf
Reboot and test...
Did that and I've lost all ethernet now
I picked a bad moment to go to bed...
sudo modprobe r8169
Remove the blacklist:
sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-r8169.conf
That should restore working net.
Once done, post the output of:
lspci -nn | grep -i ethernet
I did that and now download speeds are less then 100Mbps
That is ok, I just wanted to get you back to fully working networking, even if on the slower driver. (I am assuming you meant to reference: sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-r8169.conf
You can imagine, I checked new threads and see that seven hours ago, I left you stranded without Ethernet...
What is your terminal output for;
lspci -nn | grep -i ethernet
07:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 15)
Ok, this explains why Ethernet stopped working.
With that revision, several things break on the r8168 driver; which is why your system set to r8169, instead. Everything works... But is slower, as you noted.
Sticking with the r8169 driver, there are some adjustments you can make to speed it up.
I need to check the manpages on ethtool in order to know what those are...
Ok, try running each of the below lines in terminal, one at a time.
sudo ethtool -L eth0 combined 4
sudo ethtool --set-eee eth0 eee off
sudo ethtool -K eth0 tso off gso off gro off
This next change requires a boot or grub parameter:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
Arrow key down to this line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
add the pcie_aspm=off parameter so it looks exactly like:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash pcie_aspm=off"
When you have assured it does, tap ctl+o to overwrite, then enter key to save as current configuration.
Tap ctl+x to exit the editor.
Ensure that you have run:
sudo modprobe r8169
sudo rm /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-r8169.conf
And also run:
sudo apt remove --purge r8168-dkms
before you reboot and test.
nno such device on the first command so yeah its something which i guess cant be fixed
Run
ls /sys/class/net
to get the actual Ethernet and Wifi I.D's.
Sorry, I was unclear (or forgetful) the eth0 is a placeholder for the Ethernet I.D. It could be eth1 or something else.
Show your ls /sys/class/net and we can see what the exact I.D. is.
$ ls /sys/class/net
enp7s0 lo wlp6s0
sudo ethtool -L enp7s0 combined 4
sudo ethtool --set-eee enp7s0 eee off
sudo ethtool -K enp7s0 tso off gso off gro off
sudo ethtool -L enp7s0 combined 4 netlink error: Operation not supported
other commands and grub are fine and ready to test
Ok, so that chipset does not support multi-value setting. You can ignore that one and proceed to test...
steam for a real world compare.
Windows 891Mbps.
Zorin after the tweaks 227Mbps
I recommend leaving the tweaks applied for now...
But yes, that result is not looking like we have success on the horizon. This is a limitation of proprietary driver usage on FOSS...
Sadly, I think that aside from changing the NIC to a more Linux Friendly one; it will remain on slower speeds for Zorin OS.
Yet before I switched over the the r8168 im sure i was pulling closer to 700Mbps on steam
Steam is a huge variable in download speeds, so one test (Yes, that was slow) is not statistically strong.
Your O.P said
not 700mps.
That was a test on Zorin, i wrote the OP when i was trying with other stuff but still around 200Mbps slower with windows nearly 900