PCI Express X1 Interface to 2.5GbE RJ45 Ports Network Adapter for Windows 11, 10 64bit and Windows Server 2019, 2022, Intel I225V Ethernet Controller, 2.5GbE PCIE NIC Card (PCIE-I225)

perfect size, quality, performance

My realtek based 1Gbps adapter keeled over in my home linux routing machine so I needed something pretty quick to get our network back up and running before my kiddos revolted and started plotting my demise. It had been a while since I'd had to buy a stand alone NIC so I went looking for what would probably work out of the box in linux. I read good things about this chipset and this was one of the more affordable NICs available featuring the chipset. It's been in service a little over 3 weeks now with some heavier than normal usage (I'm retrieving some collections from The Internet Archive) and it's working fantastically. No problem with bandying about 1Gbps across my home network.

bought the LinksTek X540-T2 Dual 10GbE RJ45 card for my Proxmox/Linux server. Unfortunately, it is completely unusable. The system detects the card as an Intel X540-AT2, not as a LinksTek product. See attached screenshot (lspci -nn | grep -i ethernet). The driver (ixgbe) fails to load due to firmware/EEPROM errors (“EEPROM Checksum Is Not Valid,” “Adapter removed, error -5”). corrupted EEPROM/firmware. No usable interfaces ever appear (ip -br link show only lists my onboard NICs). Even after BIOS adjustments, rescans, and driver reloads, the card cannot initialize. This suggests the card has faulty firmware or is a rebranded/resold unit that doesn’t function properly. I’ve attached screenshots of the PCI output and driver errors as proof. Returning for a refund.

Quick drop in for improved LAN speed on a PC / server.

I have bought two of these cards. I'm currently using it in 1GB Ethernet mode due to eventually upgrading to 10GB networking. Once you download the driver's from Intel for X520-T2. It worked perfectly. The price is also good for when I bought it. I would highly suggest this.

Only lasted eight months, but it was cheap

I just turned off my pc, put it in an open slot, turned it back on and it worked! No drivers to install on windows 11. Let’s see how long it lasts ….

Summary: It's a good card that overall works as expected. I've had some mixed experiences with the Intel I225-V chipset in the past, but the card I received isn't have issues (so far). This card could've used a heatsink, and I'm concerned the lack of one may create issues for some. The green PCB isn't too friendly for a gaming PC. The card was packaged well, about on par with other 2.5Gb NICs at this price point. The card itself was in an antistatic bag. Included in the box were instructions and a disc with the drivers. You can also download drivers from Intel's website (which is my preferred approach). This card looks to be the same as NETELY's offering, ASIN B0BNRJ1FTC. At the time of writing this review, that card was priced the same, but it's a green PCB. I like that a short bracket was included. I have other machines that use the short bracket type. The inclusion of the short bracket seems standard for NICs here on Amazon. The build quality is decent. All of the components look neatly soldered onto the PCB. Part of my initial impression when viewing the listing and receiving the item, I was concerned by the lack of a heatsink. Other 2.5Gb NICs that I've ordered here on Amazon used Realtek controllers and included a relatively large heatsink. This card has dedicated status LEDs for both the activity of the card and an established 2.5Gb link. The LEDs are part of the RJ-45 port itself, which is my preferred approach. Other cards use separate LEDs adjacent to the port, and some use surface-mounted LEDs that bleed light everywhere. I connected this card to a test bench machine, installed the appropriate drivers, and connected it to another 2.5Gb interface using a CAT6 cable. This was a machine-to-machine connection without an intermediate router or switch to skew results. The card performed fine, hitting an average of 2.32 Gbps. This speed is on par with other 2.5Gb cards I've used. I ran the tests over a period of five minutes and didn't see any link dropouts, though the chipset was definitely heating up. I may use an extra heatsink from a Raspberry Pi to mitigate some of the heat on the controller. At the time of writing this review, the price of this card was $25.99. This price is standard for these single port 2.5Gb NICs. The competing cards can offer a different controller. A Realtek controller may have better compatibility for your use case. Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend this card with the lack of a heatsink. As a side note, I have another Intel I225-V NIC in an Asus motherboard. That NIC was basically DOA, and I can only ever get about 1 Mbps through it regardless of cable, OS, configuration, etc. It's a REV3 just like this card. I'm not sure if Intel has worked out these issues; if they haven't I don't know what the probability of getting a dead card would be, but based on the research I did when debugging the motherboard's NIC these I225-V NICs have been problematic for many.

This card just arrived in the mail, and I'm immediately returning it. I installed the card and attempted to boot and my PC won't even POST, CPU fan spins for a second then goes dead - installed my old card again and PC works fine... Was attempting to install with pfsense which already has the ixgbe driver installed, so no reason for my PC not to boot after simply installing the card in the motherboard.

Card was recognized but not working. After some digging I found in dmesg | grep lxbge that there was a firmware fault during initialization. I just gave up and bought a similar intel 10G card instead of trying to flash firmware. The other card I bought went in and worked perfectly right away. I would look else ware for a linux server application.