> Ah, so it’s a Realtek RTL8153! I always found Intel NICs to be way more reliable and stable, but okay, that’s a reasonably popular chip.
Intel doesn't make USB ethernet controllers, they only do PCIe. Realtek has a near monopoly on USB Ethernet, the only other supplier I can think of is SMSC/Microchip LAN7500, and I'm not sure it's any better.
> There’s also a second USB hub, but only a 2.0 one, same vendor, but 0x2817 as the product ID. That slower hub was used for the SD and microSD card reader.
That's the same hub, USB 3.0 just bolts on to USB 2.0 additively & the USB 2.0 world exists in parallel. Both hubs are contained in the same physical chip.
On the desktop, on Windows, the RTL8153 hasn't given me an issue. However, I've heard bad things. My last upgrade had an Intel I225-V, so unfortunately, I cannot report on longevity. The Intel NIC, however? Thumbs up.
Intel doesn't make USB ethernet controllers, they only do PCIe. Realtek has a near monopoly on USB Ethernet, the only other supplier I can think of is SMSC/Microchip LAN7500, and I'm not sure it's any better.
> There’s also a second USB hub, but only a 2.0 one, same vendor, but 0x2817 as the product ID. That slower hub was used for the SD and microSD card reader.
That's the same hub, USB 3.0 just bolts on to USB 2.0 additively & the USB 2.0 world exists in parallel. Both hubs are contained in the same physical chip.