Realtek RTL8157 USB 5GbE Ethernet on Windows 7/8

[the_r3dacted]

I had gotten curious about USB Ethernet adapters, and found RTL8157 based adapters are pretty cheap now. They can be found for below $20 on eBay and AliExpress, at least here in the US. I also noticed the Realtek drivers for Windows 7 and 8 list three device IDs for the RTL8157, but the entries are all commented out.

So I got one, and got testing, and found if you uncomment those entries, it just works. My main PC has been using an RTL8157 exclusively for over a month now and it's been fine. I'm not sure why these entries exist but are commented out if it works. Maybe someone could contact Realtek and get them to release a driver with these entries uncommented. (It would also be cool to get working XP/Vista drivers, but idk if that's asking too much.)

Since the process is so easy, I've opted to release the process on how to do it rather than release pre-modded drivers. Maybe it could be worth releasing modded drivers if someone could sign the modified inf.

Step 1: Get the drivers for your respective OS version from Realtek, https://www.realtek.com/Download/List?cate_id=585
Step 2: Extract the drivers, and the exe installer with 7-zip.
Step 3: Inside the driver installer is a Win7 or Win8 folder, and inside this folder are 64 and 32 folders. 64 for 64 bit, 32 for 32 bit. Open the folder for your respective OS and type. (This may also work for 32 bit, it has the same entries, but i have not tested it.)
Step 4: Edit the rtump*sta.INF, remove the `;` behind all the `RTL8157X` entries, and save.
Step 5: Install the drivers with device manager, https://board.eclipse.cx/viewtopic.php?t=758 (Since the drivers are unsigned, you will need to do the have disk method, and for Windows 8, you will need to reboot in Disable Driver Signature Enforcement mode to install the drivers.)

Now you should have cheap and easy working 5GbE Ethernet on Windows 7+ on any USB 3 system. However do note you may get some duds. So far I have gotten four adapters, and two of them I have had to return. They showed issues even on Windows 10 and Linux. However for the price and the ease of returning dud products, at least here in the US, it's worth it for me. Also on the topic of Linux, we have a driver install guide for it too, located here.

It's also possible the RTL8159, 10GbE Ethernet, can be had this way too. Also commented out are entries for a "RTL815X", and these correspond to the RTL8159 device IDs, but I don't have the money yet to drop $70+ on an RTL8159 adapter that may not even work.

[the_r3dacted]

I also wanted to test the RTL8126, I was hopeful since it's Realtek PCIe 5GbE and the Realtek USB 5GbE worked fine, however the driver inf had nothing for beyond 2.5GbE. I finally tested it today, and I modded the driver and got it to install, however it only "negotiates" at 100 megabits and sends/receives no data. So I guess the PCIe driver has no 5G/10G capability at all while the USB driver has it just disabled.

Something else to note with the RTL8157, it seems consistently unstable when used with Ryzen (500 series chipset, 5000 series CPU) USB controllers, however it's completely fine with other USB controllers in the same machine. (other being sample size of 1 though. Intend to test Intel long term at some point soon. Also I'd like to get a(nother) UPD720201 based card to test with since those are the only decent add in controllers you can get.) Unstable meaning it will BSOD the system every so often with 0x00000133 or 0x00000139, however that's usually after multiple days of the system being powered on and probably more the fault of the shitty Ryzen USB controller anyways. I haven't had enough time to see if Linux or Windows 10 encounters this issue though, although I have had one weird freeze with Linux when using it.

I was using the built in USB port in my 2080 Ti for this adapter, but that GPU has since died. Due to having no other controller, I've been using AQC107 Ethernet recently. It's actually pretty decent on 8.1 with the 2.1.18.0 driver from 2019/06/13, while the same controller is awful on 10 and Linux, not sure why. Wouldn't recommend it though as it's considerably more expensive on a PCIe card than just getting a RTL8157 and a (hopefully) decent USB PCIe card.

On a maybe more positive note, I want to eventually fork the Dietmar open source RTL8125 driver and attempt to port it to the RTL8126 and see what it can do. Which would mean the card could work on even XP. However I have no timeline for that, nor do I know if I could even do it.