Intermittent wired connectivity

[gruhl]

I'm using a Gigabyte ep45-ud3p motherboard, Vista 64, & the onboard Realtek GigE LAN ports. These are paired with the 64b drivers on the PC and a Netgear VPN router. The wired connectivity to the rest of my house (wireless access points, other wired computers, Tivos, etc.) all work without any problems. However, the wired connection to this computer drops after ~2 minutes. When this occurs, it requires a disable/enable of the Realtek hardware -or- an unplug / replug of the cable to the port ('re-acquire IP' in Vista troubleshooter does NOT work). I have tried other ports on the router and the behavior remains the same. I have also tried the 'LAN2' port on the motherboard and the same problem exists. Has anyone else experienced this kind of connectivity issue? Is it likely the driver or is it a Realtek/Netgear HW conflict? Thanks!

Greg

 

[Fardringle]

Try a different ethernet cable.

 

[gruhl]

OK, I tried another cable (that works perfectly on another wired computer). I am still having the same issues. Could this be a problem with the 64b drivers or the Realtek chip? Is there an easy way to debug this? Should I get a separate NIC and see if that resolves the problem?

 

[bidzina]

I have a similar problem on Win 7 64bit. I had Win 7 32bit and don't remember any such problem. After fresh install of Win 7 64bit, every time I boot up my computer, it doesn't connect to internet. I need to disable and then re-enable the network adapter to connect. At first boot it always gives a name "Network 2" to the connection. After I manually disable/re-enable it, windows assigns just "Network" name to the established connection.

I have a motherboard with integrated Realtek RTL 8168D/811D Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20). Windows update upgraded drivers to v. 7.002.1127.2008, but didn't help. I downloaded new drivers v. 7.017.304.2010 from the motherboard manufacturer (Biostar) website - didn't help. Then downloaded even newer drivers from Realtek website v. 7.40.126.2011, but didn't help the issue.

And this is even with the fresh install of Win 7, without installing any antivirus or firewall or any other security/anti-spy program that would potentially block internet traffic. Simple disable-enable helps establish an internet connection after boot, but it is very annoying manual task.

Anyone who has experienced this problem and solved it, please help me. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks.
Bidzina

 

[owensdj]

Make sure you are using auto-negotiation on the NIC for the speed & duplex setting.

What is the spec on the cabling running to the problem PC? If it's under-speced for gigabit ethernet the NIC may be getting set to 1Gbs but the cabling is unable to handle it reliably. Have you tried plugging the PC directly into the switch using a Cat6 or better patch cable?

 

[ScottMac]

OK, I tried another cable (that works perfectly on another wired computer). I am still having the same issues. Could this be a problem with the 64b drivers or the Realtek chip? Is there an easy way to debug this? Should I get a separate NIC and see if that resolves the problem?

It sounds more like an overlapping IP address. Do you have static IPs? or more than one DHCP service active?

 

[bidzina]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. The problem is fixed now. It looks like the ISP had some problems as I have not changed anything and my computer logs in without a problem. They had problems with their website too.