ReadyNAS 314 NIC Failing after firmware update

I have been operating my RN314 for nearly 5 years without problems or issues.  With my UPS, uptime has been nearly 99.9% the entire time.  I recently purchased a pair of 12TB drives to upgrade my storage capacity with.  In order to use those drives, I had to update firmware.  I don't know what firmware I upgraded from, but I'm relatively positive that it was from around mid to late 2013.

 

I upgraded to the most recent stable which is 6.9.3 (I think) a couple of days prior to recieving the new drives.  That night, the NAS became unreachable.  After a hard reboot (power switch off then on), I checked the logs and saw that the NIC lost it's static IP address due to NIC reset of some sort.  Without an IP address, obviously the device is unreachable.  Every day, twice a day or more often, the device would lose it's IP address due to NIC reset.  For the past 5 years, I've only used one NIC (eth0).

 

I provisioned the other NIC (eth1) with the same static IP as eth0 and changed eth0 to another address thinking the affected NIC was failing and also thinking I could resume normal operations on the other NIC.  So now I have two NICs, two IP addresses.  Both reachable by ssh, html, applications, etc...

 

Nope.  Same day, second NIC fails.  First NIC stays up long enough for me to see the same failure in the logs.  First NIC then fails as well and another hard reset is necessary to get to the NAS.  For the next couple of days, I cannot keep the NAS online very long without losing connectivity.

 

Last night both NICs failed at the same time, however one somehow recovered a short time later.  If one NIC is still alive, I can reset the failed NIC by doing an  - ipconfig eth0/1 down/up - command.  That restores connectivity until the next failure.

 

I have researched the internet including this forum for possible solutions. I even upgraded the firmware to 6.9.4-T8.  Nothing seems to help.  I have a feeling it's the NIC drivers that are failing since a newer version than my original version was introduced in a 6.9.x update (if I'm not mistaken).  I have no idea what driver I can roll back to (if possible) to try to remedy this.

 

My original purchase date for this NAS is 6/28/2013 so I should still be within 5 years (barely) if there is a warranty left.  I have attached partial, but hopefully relevent logs and commands.

 

I attempted to open a support case, but based on support descriptions and my situation, this unit does not qualify for either gearhead or prosupport (or does it?).  Is there another hardware issue support line I can submit this to other than community?

 

Please help!  Thanks!