I fixed it I hope! Best of all, I can stay on 5.50 with 2.10.0720 and not need to reformat Windows 10!
You see, I took notes of what the error messages are saying about the DNS Client Service, which is similarly to what was mentioned here: Get rid of yellow mark on network icon on windows server. I tried going to the Microsoft website mentioned on that page (http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt) and noticed that it is unresponsive at times, even though it is just a very simple web page, indicating that something was wrong with the way Internet goes in and out of my computers.
Given that the page was important since Windows uses it as a way of finding out the quality of Internet connection and the Techspot blog (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/networking/2012/12/20/the-network-connection-status-icon/) mentioned that this specifically test the quality of DNS responses, I then decided to check all my network adapters. I found out that I was setting DNS servers even for my Mellanox adapters even though they are connected only to other computers (I was setting two computers and a NAS to connect to each other directly; I wanted to transfer files between them via 10Gbe while they are still connected to the Internet with Gigabit) instead of a switch.
I tried to do a "Network Reset" to clear all settings and set only the IP address, Netmask and Default Gateway for each Mellanox adapter while leaving the DNS servers blank. This idea worked to my surprise as I was expecting Windows to give me error messages for not setting a DNS server for those 10 Gbe connections. I repeated all of these on the other computer (which was using Windows inbox drivers instead of 5.50) and the NAS (which was using Linux inbox drivers) and have similar successes.
So far, they are as snappy as before, which is very noticeable since I am on 1Gbps up/down connection. Youtube videos can load at FHD quality right away instead of being stuck at 360p. All of these are happening even on Incognito mode of the browsers (I tested using this all along to bypass the browser cache to ensure that the connection is fast not due to the cached files)
All in all, this shows that:
1. You do not need to set a DNS server for peer to peer connection; this should have been obvious to me on hindsight, I'll chalk this up to experience then
2. A 10 Gbe switch would have prevented this in the first place since in that case, I can just use the 10 Gbe adapters for both data transfer and Internet connection at the same time, making configuration and troubleshooting a lot easier. I can see why these switches cost a lot now...
3. Maybe I should have just went with ConnectX-3 in the first place? I am still getting error messages about the ConnectX-2 being too old etc, it is making me feel bad about my purchases! (Paid about 40 USD per card including a DAC per card and S&H)
You see, I took notes of what the error messages are saying about the DNS Client Service, which is similarly to what was mentioned here: Get rid of yellow mark on network icon on windows server. I tried going to the Microsoft website mentioned on that page (http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt) and noticed that it is unresponsive at times, even though it is just a very simple web page, indicating that something was wrong with the way Internet goes in and out of my computers.
Given that the page was important since Windows uses it as a way of finding out the quality of Internet connection and the Techspot blog (https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/networking/2012/12/20/the-network-connection-status-icon/) mentioned that this specifically test the quality of DNS responses, I then decided to check all my network adapters. I found out that I was setting DNS servers even for my Mellanox adapters even though they are connected only to other computers (I was setting two computers and a NAS to connect to each other directly; I wanted to transfer files between them via 10Gbe while they are still connected to the Internet with Gigabit) instead of a switch.
I tried to do a "Network Reset" to clear all settings and set only the IP address, Netmask and Default Gateway for each Mellanox adapter while leaving the DNS servers blank. This idea worked to my surprise as I was expecting Windows to give me error messages for not setting a DNS server for those 10 Gbe connections. I repeated all of these on the other computer (which was using Windows inbox drivers instead of 5.50) and the NAS (which was using Linux inbox drivers) and have similar successes.
So far, they are as snappy as before, which is very noticeable since I am on 1Gbps up/down connection. Youtube videos can load at FHD quality right away instead of being stuck at 360p. All of these are happening even on Incognito mode of the browsers (I tested using this all along to bypass the browser cache to ensure that the connection is fast not due to the cached files)
All in all, this shows that:
1. You do not need to set a DNS server for peer to peer connection; this should have been obvious to me on hindsight, I'll chalk this up to experience then
2. A 10 Gbe switch would have prevented this in the first place since in that case, I can just use the 10 Gbe adapters for both data transfer and Internet connection at the same time, making configuration and troubleshooting a lot easier. I can see why these switches cost a lot now...
3. Maybe I should have just went with ConnectX-3 in the first place? I am still getting error messages about the ConnectX-2 being too old etc, it is making me feel bad about my purchases! (Paid about 40 USD per card including a DAC per card and S&H)