Network Discovery Crashes Router

I have been having a problem with my home network crashing when using WIndows 7. For some reason, whenever I tried to access shared folders or computers on my home network, windows 7 would show "limited connectivity" and I would lose my internet connection. The crazy thing, is that Windows 7 was somehow causing my router to fail because all of my networked computers lost their connections (wired and wireless) until I reset the router and restarted windows 7.

I recently turned off "network discovery" in my network control panel in WIndows 7, and the problem seems to have stopped. But now I still can't access shared computers, folders, or printers. Does anyone have any idea what is going on?

Router: Belkin wireless G router with the latest firmware
Adapter: Realtech integrated into my gigabyte motherboard
Windows 7 build 7100 64bit (Although I've had the same problem with other early Windows 7 builds)

What is the exact model of the Belkin router? See if it will run DD-WRT firmware.

With the Windows7 PC that you turned off Network Discovery, it will no longer be able to share, but the other PC's in the network should. Network Discovery has to be ON to share and to see the other PC's in your network, however the other PC's should be able to see each other and share.

Are you having problems with the other PC's sharing now or just the Windows7 PC that you turned off Discovery? If your having troubles with all PC's sharing now, Shut down all pc's and reboot the router by cycling the power off and on, then turn on the PC's and check sharing.

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Relating to Windows7 Network Problem:

If you turn on network discovery on all PC's, did you run the network setup wizard on windows7 and name the homegroup the same as the network name on the other PC's?
When you setup a home network, its best to temporally turn off firewalls so they don't interfere with the setup process and prevent the connections. Then after you get it all tested and working, turn firewall back on, and retest. If you now have a problem, its most likely the firewall blocking access.

In the setup of the network, did you choose "home/work"? The PC's that are going to share, need to be on the "Home/Work" network with the default windows settings in order to share. In the Advanced page that you went into to turn off discovery, you'll see that there are 2 groups and different settings for both the home/work and public, check that your changing the settings for the right group.

It's best to leave network discovery and file/printer sharing OFF in the Public Profile. You want to keep the Public profile as secure as possible for when you connect to networks outside of your home network or want to easily stop sharing on a PC. All you would do is switch to the public profile to stop sharing access. The Home/Work Profile should be the one where you allow network discovery & file/print sharing ON. Thus you need to be on the Home/Work Profile for sharing.

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Its hard to know how much some one your trying to help knows about PC's, sorry if the above is all redundant. Some more details are needed to know what your having problems with and your complete network setup if the above doesn't help. Look over all your settings carefully and check with Windows Help & Support, ...sometimes it IS actually helpful, lol.

Hope this Helps, Good Luck

Network Discovery Crashes Router.

Network Discovery Crashes Router - first posted by laddieri June 2009.
I ran into this problem around then using Windows Vista. I ran into it again recently after buying a Windows 7 computer. The problem has occurred on two different routers, 3 Com and Netgear. The problem affects both 802 network cable connections and wireless access. In the wireless case it makes it very hard to make a connection – maybe 5 attempts. When it is running it will cause the router to lose sync on the ADSL line some time later. Cable connections gain immediate access to the router but again the ADSL link fails later. It may take minutes or hours to fail. To recover, the router has to be re-booted.

The solution in all cases has been to turn off Network Discovery. The workaround I use for not having network discovery is to make shortcuts of the URLs of all the devices in my home network. To find these URLs either they must be noted when first setting up the resource, or you can use network discovery to find them whilst it is running.

I suspect that the Network Discovery protocol is too aggressive for the older routers I have been using. I don’t know if an up-to-date router may solve the problem. But if you have Vista, or Win 7 with a legacy router this may help explain line dropouts and wireless access problems.

Pentasaurus said:

Network Discovery Crashes Router.

Network Discovery Crashes Router - first posted by laddieri June 2009.
I ran into this problem around then using Windows Vista. I ran into it again recently after buying a Windows 7 computer. The problem has occurred on two different routers, 3 Com and Netgear. The problem affects both 802 network cable connections and wireless access. In the wireless case it makes it very hard to make a connection – maybe 5 attempts. When it is running it will cause the router to lose sync on the ADSL line some time later. Cable connections gain immediate access to the router but again the ADSL link fails later. It may take minutes or hours to fail. To recover, the router has to be re-booted.

The solution in all cases has been to turn off Network Discovery. The workaround I use for not having network discovery is to make shortcuts of the URLs of all the devices in my home network. To find these URLs either they must be noted when first setting up the resource, or you can use network discovery to find them whilst it is running.

I suspect that the Network Discovery protocol is too aggressive for the older routers I have been using. I don’t know if an up-to-date router may solve the problem. But if you have Vista, or Win 7 with a legacy router this may help explain line dropouts and wireless access problems.

Needless to say that a newer or different router would solve the problem without question.

A firmware update or going to the DD-WRT or the tomato firmware would also work for old routers.

I wouldn't put up with this problem for two seconds, either change routers or update the firmware, problem solved.

Thank You for your clear-cut answer. I have been putting off buying a new router until someone who knows confirmed it. I usually buy two at a time of this kind of peripheral, for hardware failure redundancy. This shows that things get out of date more often than the hardware fails. The real cost has fallen over the years. So this time I will buy just one and buy again later if it fails.