Fresh Windows 7 install, LAN connection issues

[castun]

Hard drive crashed, so installed a new one. NIC worked fine before, though I remember a couple times in the past where the NIC stopped working when copying large files over network or streaming movies off of it, though a simple reboot fixed that. So the possibility of flaky hardware exists.

Windows 7 Pro x64. Installed chipset drivers and LAN drivers (it has an onboard RealTek adapter, which wouldn't work with generic MS drivers.)

It goes through the identifying process, but then it says no internet connection. I check ipconfig, and rather than having a 192.168.x.x address it shows a 169.254.x.x address. I checked to make sure it's setup for automatic IP addresses, which it is. If I manually disable the NIC, or use the Windows Troubleshoot tool, it hangs the system completely once it tries to reset the device. Same thing if I try to disable it through Device Manager, or even to uninstall the driver.

So seems to be an issue with it not being able to communicate with the router or DHCP server. I tried to ping the router IP and it just says it fails.

I've tried to manually assign it an IP (outside of the DHCP range) and no dice.

Tried different ports on the router, as well as a different cable, though neither should really matter because they both worked fine before.

Odd thing is, it DID somehow work a couple times, both times I managed to uninstall and reinstall the driver manually. But then after rebooting, it fails again. These are the latest drivers from Asus website for the motherboard (Asus M4A87TD-USB3.)

 

[MrNeeds]

Have you tried resetting your router to factory defaults? you may have run out of IP addresses, they are not unlimited and are usually capped to 249 active sessions, but sometimes they reserve these "active sessions" for returning devices to the network, a quick reboot of your router might do the trick.

 

[castun]

Have you tried resetting your router to factory defaults? you may have run out of IP addresses, they are not unlimited and are usually capped to 249 active sessions, but sometimes they reserve these "active sessions" for returning devices to the network, a quick reboot of your router might do the trick.

Yep, no dice on that either. I checked the reserved IP table and there were only a handful of reserved addresses. Also should point out my main desktop that I'm on now is also wired in and has zero issues.

 

[MrNeeds]

Sounds very strange indeed, I'm kind of pointing toward a faulty Ethernet cable, do you have a different one you can try?

 

[castun]

Yeah, I tried the one off of my desktop which clearly works fine, still nothing. I'm going to try to boot Linux off of a USB stick and see if it's just an odd driver issue. If not, looks like I might just have to order a NIC card rather than replace the whole motherboard.

The router does have a USB port which I guess I could try, I just wouldn't want to run a USB cable some 30ft.

 

[castun]

Confirmed it works 100% in Linux Mint Live USB with no issues, didn't have to fiddle around with extra drivers either. I'm going to try the drivers directly from the RealTek website as they seem to be newer than what Asus has listed. If that doesn't work, I'll try another full format & reinstall of Windows 7 from scratch.

 

[MrNeeds]

Confirmed it works 100% in Linux Mint Live USB with no issues, didn't have to fiddle around with extra drivers either. I'm going to try the drivers directly from the RealTek website as they seem to be newer than what Asus has listed. If that doesn't work, I'll try another full format & reinstall of Windows 7 from scratch.

okie dokie, seems a bit unusual though, good luck and keep us posted.

 

[castun]

OK, even weirder is I found it even works fine in Safe Mode. Connects fine, and I can disable and enable the adapter over and over without it locking up the system. Yet without Safe Mode it still doesn't want to connect, and always hard locks the system.

Definitely doing a full reformat and reinstall. I'm thinking something got FUBARed the first time around.

 

[castun]

I figured out what the problem is, mostly. It started to happen again after a reinstall, but I realized it was after it had automatically downloaded and installed some Windows Updates. I Googled the issue and there are definitely certain updates that cause problems with people's network and internet connections. I actually seem to remember something very similar happening before when I first built the computer. So this time I disabled automatic updates and just need to figure out what the problem update is and avoid it. Funny thing is, there were only a handful of updates installed this past go around, and even after uninstalling them and rolling back, it didn't fix the issue like I was hoping. I'll try to nail down the exact update, installing them one by one if I have to.

 

[MrNeeds]

Did a quick check on some of my updates with network related support articles, seems that these might be your best bet to avoid.

Delay occurs when you log on to a domain from a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2

You cannot use an USB RNDIS device to connect to a 3G or 4G network in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

An IPv6 readiness update is available for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2

No network connectivity on Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based client computers when a DHCPv6 message is sent that has a duplicated DUID