Competing internet connections...?

I apologize in advance in case this question has already been asked and discussed, but I couldn't find any reference to it when I ran a few searches.

I'm running a new Gateway desktop system, with six gigs of RAM and all the other usual bells and whistles that you'd expect in an office environment computer. The problem I'm having is that when I reboot and the system tries to access the Internet, about half the time it's successful, and the other half instead of just displaying that I have Internet connection through the Work network, it shows that I do not have an Internet connection, and it displays both the Work network and an Unidentified network. (See photo.)

(When the Work network connects successfully, the Network Sharing Center only displays the Work network connection. The "Unidentified network" is not displayed at all. It only displays when internet connection isn't successful.)

I have the network connection configured to use the Work network environment. It seems that when the system boots up it searches for the Internet connection, and as long as the Work network connection manages to find the connection first, the connection is made with no problems. It also seems that this "Unidentified network" is also simultaneously searching for Internet access, and when they interfere with each other, neither one of them makes a successful connection to the Internet.

I haven't the slightest idea how to stop or turn off this Unidentified network from activating and searching for an Internet connection. I tried changing to the Home network environment, but that didn't make any difference. The same thing happens, with the connection being successful about 50% of the time, and the other 50% there is this conflict again with the Unidentified network which prevents either one of them from connecting successfully.

It's not as if this is a life and death problem, because correcting it entails simply disabling the Unidentified network, and then re-enabling the ethernet card to the control panel. The fix takes about 30 seconds, and then the Work network displays as being successfully connected to the Internet. Life goes on.

However, when I am traveling and need to reboot the computer remotely for some reason, that's when this problem can be serious. If it successfully reconnects to the Internet after the reboot I'm okay. But if it doesn't, that means I have to call someone to go to my office and manually disable the Unidentified network, and enable the ethernet card so that I have access to the computer again. This can be very problematic at three o'clock in the morning, particularly if I need to get a report out to a client immediately.

If anybody has any experience with this type of problem, where it seems that two connections are competing with each other when the computer is booted, resulting in neither one of them successfully connecting with the Internet, I'd appreciate knowing what the solution is to eliminate this Unidentified network from activating.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hello Tayler,

It looks like you have a second network adaptor trying to access the internet. I think this tutorial from Brink might help in this situation.
Unidentified Networks - Set as Private or Public

If this doesn't sort out the problem can you post a screen shot of your ipconfig /all typed into a command prompt.

Thanks for your reply. I went to the referenced page and downloaded/installed the file to set the Unidentified network to Work. I thought the problem was completely fixed, because every time I've rebooted the computer, it connected to the internet correctly, displaying only one internet connection, identified as the Work network. This morning, however, it didn't connect correctly. The connection center window displayed multiple networks again, both labeled as Work (the Unidentified network was labeled as Work), and neither was connected. I disabled the Unidentified (work) network, which of course made both networks disappear, then re-enabled the Gigabyte card through the control panel, and the single Work network initiated and connected correctly to the internet.

As you requested, here is a screen shot of the ipconfig /all. Does it give you any clue as to why the computer (sometimes) attempts to connect with multiple networks, which results in neither of them connecting? It does seem the installation of the file from the page you referred to has greatly decreased the percentage of times this happens, but even once, at 3 in the morning when I'm out of town, is not a pleasant thought.

Thank you for your help.

The ipconfig looks fine. The other possible problem is that you have the bonjour service installed on your machine which will cause this exact problem to occur.

If you have anything installed from Adobe photoshop or Apple then it's possible the bonjour service was installed.

I have the whole Adobe CS installed (nothing from Apple except Quicktime). So, how do I get rid of or disable this "Bonjour" service that I don't need?

Just as I suspected, Apple Adobe and bonjour once again.
To fix ...
Run MsConfig

Under the Services tab uncheck the service called "##Id_String1.6844[... and then a bunch of numbers]" by Apple. This will only turn off the bonjour service but it's best to remove it from your system.

1. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Bonjour
2. Rename the mdnsNSP.dll file in that folder to mdnsNSP.old
3. Restart your computer
4. Delete the Program Files\Bonjour folder

OK, I've followed your instructions, and I guess I'll know if we've succeeded after I've rebooted it a bunch of times over the next few weeks. I'll let you know.

Thanks for your help.

This is a fairly common problem and the fix I posted has worked everytime for this particular problem so I'm quite confident that the problem is resolved. Thanks for reporting back in Tayler.

So far so good. Looks like that was the solution. THANKS!!

Sounds good TaylerCFI, thanks for letting me know the fix is still working.