Windows 10 Killer Ethernet Controllers suck

stueycaster · Jun 23, 2018

Stay away from the "Rivet Networks - Killer Gigabit Ethernet Controller" card driver. My cousin who lives with me has an Alienware gaming laptop. It was never able to transfer data as fast as my Realtek NIC. His has the Killer NIC. We have crazy fast fiber optic internet here but his could never speed test better than the 400-500 Mbps range. Mine consistently does 890 to 950. It was bothering him so much we finally broke down and reset his O/S. In a speed test immediately after the reset his was back up in the 900's. But then as soon as we installed the Killer drivers it went back down low. I removed the driver and it went back up.

There were a bunch of complaints over the Killer NIC's online. His works better with the driver that Windows 10 installs at installation. It's the Microsoft 9.0.0.42 driver. I found this as a download link for the Microsoft version. This driver at the Microsoft Update Catalog is what his "Alienware 15 R2" uses.

Mike · Jul 12, 2018

Although a bit late to the punch in replying, my main board had Killer on it and I am not a big fan of it - constant problems with the drivers in comparison with the onboard Intel ethernet adapter. Would have preferred two of those. The types of issues are kind of unexplainable, weird problems, but mostly, I found that the rate limiting software was mostly useless for my purposes, at times the driver itself was causing BSODs, and I ultimately just turned the thing off in the BIOS. It could be I am just one of the unlucky few with this adapter, but somehow I doubt it. Intel constantly updates their driver support for their network adapters and I am quite satisfied with the performance. When comparing WAN speeds using SpeedTest I even found the Intel adapter to be more effective. I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment, unfortunately.

Windows 10 Killer Ethernet Controllers suck

stueycaster

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Mike

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