I have this same RTL8111B chip on my MSI X48 Platinum, and I have problems with it too. I've been looking around, and I have found some other discussions about this. When using this chip with either Ubuntu (Gutsy was the last version I had on there) and Gentoo, transferring a moderate amount of data (say, downloading something from the internet) will cause the chip to hang. Just the network and anything dependent on the network freezes. Otherwise, the system is fine. A reboot always clears up the problem. Fortunately, I have an Intel e1000 on there as well, but I would like to use both NICs. (I guess I'll buy a switch instead.)
Someone on a Fedora forum had some interesting comments on it (read both comments): http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=160512 Here's a kernel bug report: https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/bugme-new/2006-October/015144.html There's a warning here about a mobo that uses it and how it has issues with both the in-kernel driver and the Realtek driver: http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50896 This page lists the chip multiple times, each time mentioning something about issues or instability: http://people.ubuntu.com/~brian/reports/gt5comments/linux.html Interestingly, the Realtek URL everyone points to for getting their driver (which also tends to be flaky) appears to no longer exist. I haven't tried searching their site to see if they moved it anywhere else. It appears that Realtek's support for this chip outside of Windows is lousy, and kernel developers have had trouble with hidden features of the chip biting them. -- RTL8111/8168B hangs whole PC (r8169) in feisty https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/91895 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
