Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Issues

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* What specific PC model?
* What operating system is installed?

The generic fix is...

Click Start>Run>services.msc and click OK. When services.msc opens, find each Killer service (and xTend services, if any listed), Double-click each of them, one at a time, to open it.  Set the Startup Type for every Killer (and xTend) service to disabled. 

Exit service.msc when all Killer (xTend) are disabled, reboot PC, and check ethernet performance again.

We have 4 of these in a 20 employee office all on Windows 11 Pro.   Everytime Windows updates the ethernet card throttles the UL speed to <1Mbs.    I have been running the Killer App to get it back, but going to install ethernet cards and disable the E2500.    These are great computers and for us it is worth doing this workaround to keep them.

@Troyster68  - It's actually Windows Update updating the Killer (Intel) Control Center app. The actual driver, itself, may not be getting updated.

Each KCC update re-enables all the Killer services in services.msc.  So relatively quick/easy to disable them again.

Swapping in an Ethernet card would work too.  You might even consider a USB3>Ethernet dongle so you don't have to open all these PCs to install a PCI-e card...

Hi Ron,

Thanks, yes we installed $10 ethernet dongles and disabled the E2500 hardware.   We used the Amazon Basics one and it works well.    Unfortunate there could not be a fix on the vendor side, but we got it now.   

Troy Ballard

CompTIA A+ Certified

All you had to do was disable the Killer services in services.msc.  That would fix the slow speed issues, at least until the next time Windows Update installed an update for the Killer software.

Or, your organization could just block driver updates from being installed automatically by Windows Update. (But then you'd have to keep on top of installing necessary updates, aside from Killer.)

The speed problem was happening on my PC with Killer E2400 hardware, so I just got in habit of checking those Killer services in services.msc if I noticed an Ethernet speed decline. Haven't had a Killer update in a while now, so I guess they've given up on E2400 hardware, Not that it matters since all they ever updated was the Killer Control Center, but not the actual 2019 hardware driver.

@RoHe​ This worked great!!!!  My internet problems started when I returned from a 3-week abscence and I tried anything I could think of short of opening the computer (tho I have in the past to double the RAM). I downloaded various drivers. I rolled back to older driver versions left in my Download folder (I had read that Windows update might have clobbered things but didn't know what else to do with that information). And blah blah blah. The weirdest thing was that at first, only Firefox worked. Other browsers balked, and Spotify desktop app would not work. So I listened to Spotify thru FFox, and then that stopped working. I had to remove the ethernet cable for anything to work, and even got a new wifi dongle, and then things were just so S L O W that I was ready to throw the whole thing out the window. Eight months!!!! So ...thank you very much!

@gpster​ Always include PC model and version of Windows in your posts.

Glad that solved your Ethernet issues.

You should have come here 8 months ago...!   ;o))

@RoHe​ Great solution because I have had issues with updated openreach 500Mbps download and 70Mbps upload, download not a problem on ethernet or wifi, uploading video files direct to youtube ethernet or wifi not a problem and uploads to exact speed. The problem for me was using ethernet cat 6 or 8 cable trying to send zip folders with images say 1gb or 2.5gb. They would simply stall through mailbigfile or yousend it. Unlpug ethernet and all is fine, they restart and upload fast. Just actioned you suggestion and it worked straight away, is there a long term fix or replace ethernet port for something like TP-Link TX201 2.5 ? My ISP offered to replace router today but it all seemed to go wrong when Openreach sai I might need to update ethernet driver.