ZimaCube2. 10gbe RJ45 connection not working

[CyTex]

The 10gb port on my ZimaCube2 appears to be DOA.

Within an hour of receiving it yesterday I had my drives (sata/nvme) installed and was installing Proxmox. When I couldn’t SSH into Proxmox was when I realized the 10gb NIC wasn’t active so I plugged a second CAT6 into one of the 2.5gb ports and finished updating Proxmox and kicked off an extended SMART test on the hard drives. This morning, when the extended test was complete, I spent some time trying to get it working.

Shut the ZimaCude2 down, took off the top and everything appears to be fine. The NVME → 10gb adapter was seated, I re-seated it anyway, and both ends of the ribbon connector appear to be fully seated as well.

Not certain what else can be done to troubleshoot this but I’m open to suggestions.

[gelbuilding]

A couple of things to check before assuming the 10Gb port is dead:

1. Confirm link at hardware level (not Proxmox)

• Do you get any link light/activity on the 10Gb port when the cable is plugged in?
• Try a different cable + different switch/router port (10Gb can be picky)

2. Check if the NIC is even detected
Boot into Proxmox shell and run:

ip link
lspci | grep -i ethernet

If the 10Gb NIC doesn’t show up there at all, that points more to hardware/connection (adapter/ribbon).

3. Driver support (very common with 10Gb)
Some 10Gb chipsets (especially Aquantia/Marvell) don’t always load automatically in Proxmox.

Check:

dmesg | grep -i eth

4. ZimaCube-specific check
You already did the right thing reseating:

• NVMe > 10Gb module
• ribbon cable

One more thing:

• Make sure the ribbon cable isn’t slightly twisted or under tension when the lid is closed (seen this cause issues)

5. Quick isolation test
If possible:

• Boot a different OS (Ubuntu live USB)
  If the 10Gb still doesn’t show there > likely hardware issue

If you can, post back the output of:

lspci
ip link

and we can confirm quickly.

[CyTex]

@gelbuilding

Thank you for jumping in here.

1. No link light, no activity. Using the same patch cable and same router port on the 2.5gb as I used on the 10gb port.

2. It does show up as a pci device.
   ip link
   1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
   link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
   2: nic0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master vmbr0 state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
   link/ether 00:e0:4c:a6:95:68 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
   altname enx00e04ca69568
   3: nic2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
   link/ether 88:c9:b3:b3:55:59 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
   altname enx88c9b3b35559
   4: nic1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
   link/ether 00:e0:4c:a6:95:69 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
   altname enx00e04ca69569
   5: vmbr0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
   link/ether 00:e0:4c:a6:95:68 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
   root@DaintyTower:~# lspci | grep -i ethernet
   5e:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-LM (rev 04)
   5f:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I226-LM (rev 04)
   60:00.0 Ethernet controller: Aquantia Corp. AQtion AQC113 NBase-T/IEEE 802.3an Ethernet Controller [Antigua 10G] (rev 03)

3. dmesg | grep -i eth
   [ 0.307641] No Local Variables are initialized for Method [_REG]
   [ 0.307642] Initialized Arguments for Method [_REG]: (2 arguments defined for method invocation)
   [ 0.307651] ACPI Error: Aborting method _SB.PC00.LPCB.H_EC._REG due to previous error (AE_NOT_FOUND) (20250404/psparse-529)
   [ 1.274741] Intel(R) 2.5G Ethernet Linux Driver
   [ 1.348292] igc 0000:5e:00.0 eth0: MAC: 00:e0:4c:a6:95:68
   [ 1.422380] igc 0000:5f:00.0 eth2: MAC: 00:e0:4c:a6:95:69
   [ 11.617234] atlantic 0000:60:00.0 enp96s0: renamed from eth1
   [ 11.617711] igc 0000:5e:00.0 enp94s0: renamed from eth0
   [ 11.618657] igc 0000:5f:00.0 enp95s0: renamed from eth2

4. Poor picture but the ribbon cable would have to be 12” long to ever interfere with the lid.

5. Question as I’m not familiar with Ubuntu. I can download an .iso from Ubuntu, boot it and run a shell off of a USB more or less the same as Unraid?

[CyTex]

Wow .. it really helps when I brought the 10gb network connection UP.

I can only assume it autostarts in ZimaOS but it certainly does not in Proxmox.

[gelbuilding]

Nice one that explains it.

Everything was actually fine, NIC detected, driver loaded, it was just DOWN, so no link light.

Proxmox doesn’t auto-bring interfaces up like ZimaOS does.

Once you brought it up > all good.