Gigabyte LAN - "SMART" Setting?

[TVeblen]

On some Gigabyte motherboards the BIOS has an option under LAN settings for "SMART".

What is it?
What does it do?

 

[PooMan UK]

The motherboard incorporates a cable diagnostic feature designed to detect the status of the attached LAN cable. This feature will detect cabling issues and report the approximate distance to the fault or short.

 

[TVeblen]

Thanks PooMan!
We have another member here dealing with a onboard LAN issue with a Gigabyte board.
http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/173614-very-quick-query.html#post1480802

I'm wondering if it would be OK to disable the SMART feature to test if that is the issue. I found an article indicating that Gigabyte's driver could be an issue.

 

[PooMan UK]

No probs pal

Smart Lan is not something that you turn on or off, it's just there and you can use it to test your lan cable. Basically you just select the test now option from inside the BIOS

*Edit
I've just had a quick looky and it seems that Gigabyte have a new SMART LAN functionality on some of their boards to save power.

Smart LAN functionality turns off power to the additional LAN ports when they're not in use.

 

[TVeblen]

I'm curious - Why would you need to "test your LAN cable"? In my primitive mind the cable would either work or not!

Or is this something to do with servers and miles of Ethernet cabling?