Windows 7: one machine attaches quickly to network, the other does not

I added a second machine to my home network, and do not know why they behave differently at boot up.



On machine A, after it gets to the desktop, the network icon show an internet connection in about one second. On machine B, after it gets to the desktop, the network icon has the yellow exclamation mark on it for about 10 seconds before it finally goes away and connects to the internet (startup folder is empty). They are both cable connected to the same DSL modem/router

Both machines are Windows 7 x64 ultimate, but B is a new build and I'm trying to get all the settings on B to be as fast as machine A, but am not sure what to try here.

An exclamation mark is telling me something could be wrong with the card even though 10 seconds is fast. Did you do any troubleshooting in the properties of the network connection in device manager ? Give it a try, post back.

Do you leave your routers & switches on 24/7 or do you flip them on like I do only when you use your pcs ?

both machines have the same Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller and both are running the same Realtek v7.48 driver. Their tcip setting are identical, and so are the settings within device manger > network adapter > properties. I just uninstalled and re-installed the driver to make sure that was not the issue.

This may have something to do with the 2WIRE router from at&t uverse, but its the only DSL router I have. Note that I am only talking about the internet connection here. The local network connection occurs instantly on both machines at boot up, but the internet connection is delayed on machine B. Its more like 20 seconds, than 10.

I almost never power down the router since it takes a good 5-10 minutes to reinitialize. I'll try it now though......

When you say identical, I hope you don't mean that they both have the same IP address.

What happens if you execute the "arp -a -v" command in the "Command Prompt"?

They can`t be identical, well they could but windows would tell you you have an ip address conflict and it wouldn`t get out til you changed it.

Make sure both your pcs are renewing their ip address everyday. Dynamic

yes they are different. Not to nitpick, but the settings are indeed identical in device manager though, because the ip address is not shown in device manager. (though resource details such as i/o range and memory range are different of course)

Only if both machines are on, when you try to set it.

Does it make a difference, which order you attempt to connect to the Internet?

here are the arp -a -v results for each machine

192.168.1.64 is the ip address of my A machine. No idea what 192.168.1.69 is on machine A (something to do with homegroup?). Am curious as to what is 224.0.0.22 on machine B

Well that`s what this is all about, yes ?

You have a .64 and .69 there so that`s right. Stupid ? but is all the cabling on pc B in good shape ?

Both machines don't have to be on when the setup is done (they could have been setup individually).