This read-only Counter tracks the count of times the Ethernet chip itself could not receive a frame on the CPE's Ethernet interface, tallied per hourly interval. Operationally, it indicates the receive silicon dropped a frame before it ever reached the driver, a lower-level failure than a software buffer shortage. For example, a technician seeing this counter increase steadily on one CPE, but not others of the same model, would suspect a failing Ethernet chip on that unit.