2018 Mac Mini with 10g - NIC overheating in Bootcamp

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2018 Mac Mini with 10g - NIC overheating in Bootcamp

Since I purchased my Mini last year, I've noticed the wired ethernet would occassionally stop working and require a reboot to fix -- even pulling the ethernet cable out and plugging back in was insufficient.

My assumption was that this was poor quality windows drivers. But then I found online where other users reported similar problems, and one pointed out that the windows event viewer showed the aquanic driver having issues. Sure enough my windows event viewer showed the exact same error messages: "Aquantia AQtion 10Gbit Network Adapter: Hardware overheat detected! Please power cycle the system."

In fact, the event viewer also has multiple warnings prior to this "Aquantia AQtion 10Gbit Network Adapter: Hardware temperature is high".

I had hoped to just control the fans a bit more aggressively with something like Mac Fan Control, but that doesn't work under bootcamp anymore - in fact, it seems like none of the sensors can even be read in windows, so I can't even see what the temperature at various points is. Some users have static set their fan speeds in OSX and then rebooted into windows, but I'm uncomfortable with that -- too low and its might actually cause worse problems when system overheats. Too high and I'll wear out the fans quicker.

I also tried contacting apple support through chat, though the person I talked to suggested I talk with microsoft -- I didn't want to argue the point at the time, but that seems pretty ridiculous since this is clearly a driver and/or hardware issue, both of which is coming from Apple.

I was also curious if the same thing could happen under OSX, since I bet support would take me much more seriously if it happened under OSX. But even when doing lots of sustained transfers for hours I don't see any interruption - either the NIC is running cooler / fans running faster, or the driver doens't care if it is overheating.

Since I now have a 10g NAS, I was hoping to actually use the adapter, but it seems like instead I may be forced to buy a separate Thunderbolt->10GBE adapater that doesn't overheat.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 11, 2019 9:51 AM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,606 points

Jul 11, 2019 10:31 AM in response to Daniel Hartman1

macOS drivers are much better than the corresponding BC drivers.

Even if your NIC is 10g, is the upstream router/gateway 10g- capable (over copper)?

Also, if macOS is using the 10g NIC, is the actual speed 10g?

These adapters will auto-negotiate and arrive at a configuration which is mutually acceptable between the Mini and upstream router/gateway.

TB3/TB2/TB adapters do also heat up, due to active electronics on both ends.

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Answer 2

Jul 11, 2019 11:38 AM in response to Loner T

I'm hooking straight to a NAS box with the 10g port using a relatively short cable. The adapter(s) seem to think they're running at full 10g, but in reality I can't be sure, because the fastest transfer I've got is ~500MB/sec - I don't have enough SSD's in a raid group to do any better than that.

But even at 1G speed, the NIC fails in bootcamp due to overheating - this was happening well before I bought my NAS and was just using the wired port for my internet. That especially frustrating since I have to use a USB adapter to have a stable wired connector at all in windows - I would have been almost better off a mini with the 1G NIC.

I realize the TB/10g adapters will heat up too, but if that fails will likely occur in both OSX & Windows, and I might be able to get action on it - or can just return it.

NOTE: I have also tried other drivers from the manufacturer without any significant differences. Still driver reports overheating and shuts down until a reboot.

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Answer 3

Loner T

Level 9

59,606 points

Jul 11, 2019 11:50 AM in response to Daniel Hartman1

On the macOS side, under System Preferences -> Network -> Ethernet -> Hardware, check the configurations. I assume you are using CAT6 or better.

In Terminal, you can also look at ifconfig.

The TB drivers also have similar differences between W10 and macOS.

If you are handy with Wireshark, you can watch the link negotiations and transfers. Jumbo frame support can also be a factor, for large IO.

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Answer 4

Jul 11, 2019 12:52 PM in response to Loner T

Yeah, the adapters are claiming 10Gbit - just saying I can't sustain over 500MB (4Gbit), so they may be running a bit slow.

But its a moot point - even when hooked to a 1Gbit network, the adapter will fail. And thanks to other windows issues, I've probably reinstalled from scratch now at least 6 times since Thanksgiving with two different major revisions of windows. So its not a bad install or bit-rot.

Some other users are claiming the iGPU can overheat on the Mac mini in windows, though I can't confirm since I use a eGPU. But does make me wonder if the fan control when OSX isn't active isn't aggressive enough for this machine. Prime95's torture test is very stable, but I suspect there's a lot of attention paid to the on-cpu thermal sensor, but perhaps less testing of the other components/temps.

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Answer 5

Loner T

Level 9

59,606 points

Jul 11, 2019 1:03 PM in response to Daniel Hartman1

You can try to lower the Processor states and see if it makes a difference. I use a Gigabit NIC on my 2018 mini, since the new 10G is ‘unproven’. You may want to consider raising a bug with Apple.

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2018 Mac Mini with 10g - NIC overheating in Bootcamp

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