Ethernet Connection Lost (and Found?)

[Chasm]

So.... previously I had tried disabling and killing my firewall and neither of those had worked. I guess there was some process or service in PC Tools Firewall that was persisting even if I disabled or closed it that was causing my issue. Uninstalled the firewall last night and my connection has remained alive with uTorrent running for 24 hours now.

I'm going to try installing a different firewall instead and see if the issue returns. I'd rather not use the built in firewall if possible.

 

[Shikiouji]

alright im 100% sure its win7 that's messing up my connection. if i somehow download anything at a high rate, it disconnects. i can't do multiple things that require bandwidth before it disconnects on me.

-i have azureus d/ling at over 500mps..if it peaks at all over 500, it d/c
-i play WoW and "attempt" to watch youtube videos, it d/c
-youtube + d/l anything else, d/c
- i think you get the idea =P

i know its win7 cuz i got myself a brand new router and i still have the same problem. also everyone else in the house are still connected to the internet while im d/c.

 

[scottyd]

Has anyone tried buying a new network card and throwing that in? I think I might do that if all else fails.

 

[kensiko]

I did.

No disconnect since. But you can't base your conclusions on that because I reinstalled Windows, so the software is a little bit different. Also, I saw a post of someone who has bought an Intel Ethernet card and still had the disconnections.

 

[scottyd]

I did.

No disconnect since. But you can't base your conclusions on that because I reinstalled Windows, so the software is a little bit different. Also, I saw a post of someone who has bought an Intel Ethernet card and still had the disconnections.

What type of network card did you get? I was looking at a pci-e rosewell one that says it specifically works with windows 7.

 

[scifiguy]

Did you try turning off the task offload as I described in my post? I'm curious if that works for others.

 

[davefr]

Has anyone tried buying a new network card and throwing that in? I think I might do that if all else fails.

Yes, and it made absolutely no difference. The NIC I bought was a D-Link model listed on MS's W7 compatability list.

My solution was changing routers. I still believe W7 has problems with ethernet/internet protocol with certain combinations of NIC's, routers, and ISP H/W.

 

[scottyd]

Did you try turning off the task offload as I described in my post? I'm curious if that works for others.

I don't even have a "task offload" option on my Marvell nic.

 

[Phasma]

Mother board= GA-ex58-ud5
CPU=i7 940
Clean install with x64 bit

Problem & Solution
On most gigabyte boards the ethernet or network hardware is a Realteck RTL-8168d/8111d Family PCI ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0). Well at least on my board it is. Once i updated win 7 using the update function i started to experience connectivity issues. Random drops with internet connection. It seems that when i did have it it would drop when i would really hammer on my up and downloads. ie internet, games, whatever.
Well i read alot of forums. Some say its the network adapter driver. Others say its a route file that makes Windows 7 loop to dead dns entries or such( forgive me i am not an expert in such technical issues).
But here it what i have found.
Windows 7 has ethernet drivers that it will install when you upgrade or clean install. SO it replaces your old working drivers. And since its still pretty new i figure companies have not worked out the bugs to the possible compatibility issues. WE all know they will but till then its frustrating with a constant lost internet connection.


Solution.
Go to control panel
Hardware and sound option (category view) System in Icon view.
Device manager.
then look up Network adapters.
Find the primary network adapter.
Right click properties.
Then update driver.
You should see the version number.
Install a version that is before this one that is currently installed.
IF you can find one on the net wonderful. I however used my old MOtherboard instalation CD.
I chose Have own disk . Browse. explore the cd ( open it up to find the exact folder with the drivers on there.)
Just update and your good.
Just restart and your good to go.
I have had no problems since then. Best to stick with a working driver than a new and improved one....
also make sure you dont have WIndows updates undo your handy work.

This is the simplist way and easiest way i could think of.
Btw i have reinstalled the drivers, clean system, Removed anti virus software, closed firewall etc.
Nothing worked but this did. Give it a spin and let me know.

 

[Xello]

I noticed a new Realtek driver was released in the past few weeks so i've installed that, if it doesn't do the trick i'll try installing a really old one from an old installation CD.

 

[davefr]

I noticed a new Realtek driver was released in the past few weeks so i've installed that, if it doesn't do the trick i'll try installing a really old one from an old installation CD.

Bases on my experience the latest Realtek drivers (7.006) are even worse then the native one on the W7 CD.

 

[kensiko]

I did.

No disconnect since. But you can't base your conclusions on that because I reinstalled Windows, so the software is a little bit different. Also, I saw a post of someone who has bought an Intel Ethernet card and still had the disconnections.

What type of network card did you get? I was looking at a pci-e rosewell one that says it specifically works with windows 7.

I bought the Intel pro 1000T on ebay for 15$.

 

[Xello]

I noticed a new Realtek driver was released in the past few weeks so i've installed that, if it doesn't do the trick i'll try installing a really old one from an old installation CD.

Bases on my experience the latest Realtek drivers (7.006) are even worse then the native one on the W7 CD.

This is not the 7.006 i had before from October, these ones were released in November - 7.6.820.2009.

So far i've gone 15 hours without a single connection hiccup, these may have done the trick.

Spoke to soon, the problem returned with a vengeance.

I've now installed a really old Vista driver for Realtek 8187, but i had to run the setup.exe in XP compatibility mode and i got an error message about a cab file when it installed. Nevertheless it did install and i have network connectivity, so i'll see how it goes.

I also found this folder on my motherboard's installation cd called "RTLTOOL" and the setup.exe inside it installed "Realtek Diagnostic Utility", not sure if it will be any help though.

 

[scottyd]

I tried taking my router out of the equation and plugged directly into the wall, which probably goes to a switch since I'm at a university. Sure enough after downloading for 10-20 minutes at speeds of 2-3 MB/s my network adapters disappeared. So my router has nothing to do with it. This is getting pretty annoying, so I might buy a pci-e network card as a quick fix.

 

[Xello]

Device manager.
then look up Network adapters.
Find the primary network adapter.
Right click properties.
Then update driver.
You should see the version number.
Install a version that is before this one that is currently installed.
IF you can find one on the net wonderful. I however used my old MOtherboard instalation CD.
I chose Have own disk . Browse. explore the cd ( open it up to find the exact folder with the drivers on there.)
Just update and your good.
Just restart and your good to go.
I have had no problems since then. Best to stick with a working driver than a new and improved one....
also make sure you dont have WIndows updates undo your handy work.

I'm doing this now, can you tell me what driver version you're on? The one i've installed from my old motherboard's cd is 5.7061.1016.2008, and it's really bad, my whole connection is laggy, so i'll see what else i can find on the cd.

I found out the hard way that you have to do it the way described here, if you run the setup.exe of an old driver in compatibility mode windows 7 will step in during that installation and install its own stock driver (7.2. whatever) over the top.

:edit: have now tried every old driver from this cd, none of them worked

I'm going to look for a pci-e network card.

 

[scottyd]

Decided to order a Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-e network card for $32 shipped. Hopefully this solves the problem. Should have it sometime this week.

 

[Xello]

Decided to order a Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-e network card for $32 shipped. Hopefully this solves the problem. Should have it sometime this week.

That's the one i've ordered too

It came today, i've hooked it up, now let's see what happens.

What a waste of money, if anything changing to Intel NIC has given me more frequent disconnects.

I think i'm going to upgrade back to Vista and be rid of this turd of an operating system

 

[alloo]

gateway

I've been troubleshooting occasional dropping and was having a default gateway problem. This page has instructions by PCC-William on solving this:
The default gateway is not available - Windows 7 - Puget Computer Forum: Gaming, Video Editing, Laptops, Servers
Hope it helps someone. I've not had a drop since implementing fix #2
Will

 

[scottyd]

What a waste of money, if anything changing to Intel NIC has given me more frequent disconnects.

I think i'm going to upgrade back to Vista and be rid of this turd of an operating system

Mine should be here Thursday. I hope my results are different.

 

[Xello]

Haven't given up just yet, i will go through all the troubleshooting i did on the Realtek ones with the Intel one and then probably reset router to factory firmware, and perhaps borrow a router from someone else to see if any of this makes a difference.

If not, then i have successfully ruled out every component in my system as a possible cause, and this would be an ISP issue. I don't really want to phone them though and explain that this problem only occurs when i am seeding torrents with 100% of my upload 24/7...