Question Diskstation 214 connected to Asus RT-AC88U running at 100HD(!!)

[argel1200]

Running Merlin 384.13 on the Asus RT-AC88U router and DSM 6.2.2-24922 Update 4 on the DiskStation.

I tried hardcoding both ports to 1000 Full and the Diskstation drops off the network.

If I use robocfg port 1 media 100FD then the port goes DOWN. I have to set it to auto to get it working, though I never tried hardcoding both to 100 Half to see if that worked. Forcing the disksation to 100 Full (with autoneg off) did work, though I assume it was running with a duplex mismatch, but it did stay on the network vs. when I set the router to 100FD where the port went DOWN.

I tried moving the diskstation to one of the realtek gigabit ports (WAN + 1-4 are on broadcomm switch poers and 5-8 are realtek) on the router which all show up under port 5 and the diskstation will autoneg to 100 half. I did not try forcing it to 1000 full because my dual-wan also uses the realtek ports and robocfg changes apparently affect all 4 ports from what I've read.

On the diskstaion, leaving autoneg on and forcing it to 1000 Full also knocks it off the network. Could it have advertised 1000 Full and the router didn't like it?

Tested with two cat-5e cables (different brands).

I've had this diskstation for several years but not sure if I've ever seen it running over 100 (first router it was conencted to only support 100). I've been having a lot of file transfer issues since switching to the app server based file server on the diskstation recently, so this is the first time I've taken a close look at the networking on both to try and nail down where that problem is.

Wondering if anyone has some ideas on how I could troubleshoot this further?

admin@RT-AC88U-F018:/tmp/home/root# robocfg showports | grep "Port 1"
Port 1: 100HD enabled stp: none vlan: 1 jumbo: on mac: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

root@DiskStation:~# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: No
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: No
Link partner advertised link modes: 100baseT/Half
Link partner advertised pause frame use: No
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: No
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Half
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Link detected: yes

Crossposted on the Merlin forum: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/diskstation-214-connected-to-asus-rt-ac88u-running-at-100hd.60364/

 

[ch33zw1z]

interesting problem. Have you tried connecting it to a separate switch?

also can you clarify your topology? this statement is a bit confusing:

"I tried moving the diskstation to one of the realtek gigabit ports (WAN + 1-4 are on broadcomm switch poers and 5-8 are realtek) on the router which all show up under port 5 and the diskstation will autoneg to 100 half. I did not try forcing it to 1000 full because my dual-wan also uses the realtek ports and robocfg changes apparently affect all 4 ports from what I've read. "

 

[argel1200]

also can you clarify your topology? this statement is a bit confusing:

"I tried moving the diskstation to one of the realtek gigabit ports (WAN + 1-4 are on broadcomm switch poers and 5-8 are realtek) on the router which all show up under port 5 and the diskstation will autoneg to 100 half. I did not try forcing it to 1000 full because my dual-wan also uses the realtek ports and robocfg changes apparently affect all 4 ports from what I've read. "

The Asus router has two sets of switch ports on it WAN + 1-4 are handled by a broadcomm chipset and ports 5-8 are handled by a realtek chipset. From a physical network perspective they are all separate ports, but in robocfg the realtek ports (physical 5-8) are grouped into port 5, so basically they all share the same settings and I can't get status info on individual ports. I have tried hooking up the diskstation to ports in both.

interesting problem. Have you tried connecting it to a separate switch?

Just plugged it into my actiontec router (from the telco, running in RFC bridge mode) and it's still 100-Half. I also hooked up my graphics workstation directly to the asus router and it's running at 1000 Full (just tested with the same cable), so this seems to be a DiskStation issue.

Is there a way to override what autoneg will send (e.g. force it to advertise 1000 Full even if it thinks that's not a viable option)? The pins on the DiskStation look good. I did order a Cat6 cable just in case the diskstation NIC is super finicky.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Definitely seems a DiskStation problem, the manual doesn't indicate much in terms of network settings. It may just be the NIC on the DS is defective.

 

[argel1200]

Yeah, no luck with a Cat 6 or Cat 6 crossover cable. Time for a new DiskStation I guess.

 

[SamirD]

Before you complete give up on the 214's nic, I would try using a usb nic and see if that works.

 

[argel1200]

Before you complete give up on the 214's nic, I would try using a usb nic and see if that works.

Good call!! Just got it working with a Raspberry Pi Pi 2 Pi 3 USB Wireless Adapter Mideatek RT5370N with 2 dBi Antenna 802.11 n g b USB 2.0 Support Windows Linux Mac.

Not as good as a 5GHz adapter, but since Synology has dropped support for Wi-Fi, thought I'd go for an older one more likely to work.

 

[SamirD]

Sweet! Glad you got it working with that test.

I'd just get a wired usb nic and you should be in decnet shape again.