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Using Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 10 with an 10/100 Onboard Nvidia Ethernet controller, Cat5 Ethernet cable, and AT&T router/modem combo (on a known good port); randomly, I will lose half of the connectivity to my machine. That is, I can ping out, but not ping in from anywhere. What could be causing this problem? It seems to happen when I'm not using the machine or have let it idle for a long time.

This machine is using a static IP (192.168.1.59), as are all the other machines on this network.

From any other machine:

$ ping 192.168.1.59

PING 192.168.1.59 (192.168.1.59): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
...
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2902
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2903
^C
--- 192.168.1.59 ping statistics ---
2905 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

Disabling then Re-enabling the Ethernet controller solves the issue, at least temporarily. It happens regardless of activity.

Output of ping 192.168.1.59 and arp -a:

Pauls-Mac-mini:~ esmith$ ping 192.168.1.59
PING 192.168.1.59 (192.168.1.59): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
^C
--- 192.168.1.59 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss
Pauls-Mac-mini:~ esmith$ arp -a 
? (192.168.1.59) at 0:17:31:61:1:bb on en1 ifscope [ethernet]
? (192.168.1.254) at 78:96:84:8a:8:f0 on en1 ifscope [ethernet]
? (192.168.199.1) at 6c:70:9f:d4:8c:1e on en0 ifscope [ethernet]

MAJOR UPDATE: DHCP does drop the connection.

EVEN MAJORER UPDATE: It just happened with a PCI ethernet card (non-Nvidia). Is something wrong with my OS, or what?





Ok, new update: Windows 10 started having instability issues (random hard reboots) so I formatted and went back to a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium. I'm running on the PCI ethernet card (Realtek chipset) and it is still dropping the connection. I'm completely stumped... Any help is appreciated.

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  • No answers? Any suggestions? Anything at all?
    – Daniel
    Nov 2, 2015 at 15:34
  • You need to troubleshoot. Find out how far you get in the process. Does an ARP request get sent? Does an ARP reply get received? Does the ping request go out? Does it get received? Is a ping reply sent? Nov 18, 2015 at 2:29
  • How do I test for those? @DavidSchwartz
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 3:58
  • You can use any troubleshooting procedure you want. There's no "one right way" to do it. You can start with arp -av to see the ARP table. Nov 18, 2015 at 18:15
  • See edit to question for output @DavidSchwartz, I'm not familiar with this tool and its uses.
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 19:03

2 Answers 2

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+50

I was snooping around on the internet as well and found that it could be related to your static IP. Is it a possibility to change your IP address to obtain automatically? Even if this is not a long-term option, perhaps you could try and see if this can resolve your issue temporarily.

How:

  • go to network and sharing center -> local area connection -> properties
  • click IPv6 or IPv4 (dependent on which one you are using)
  • click obtain IP address automatically

One other option I had in mind (though this may not be possible depending on your ethernet drivers):

  • go to network and sharing center-> local area connection -> properties -> configure (client for Microsoft services) -> advanced.
  • In my case, there's a list there which lets you select various different options.
  • Select the option interrupt moderation and disable it.

Hope any of these options work. I do agree with Journeyman though that buying a cheap PCI-e network card is probably a good option.

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  • I'll try this as soon as I can. How would the static IP throw it off? It's a 100% free IP.
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 20:53
  • 1
    I disabled Interrupt Moderation, and I'll let you know tomorrow if it holds up.
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 21:14
  • So far it seems to be working...Will update in the morning
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 22:07
  • I must admit I don't know why the static ip would be an issue, but I remember it solving one of my issues at some point as well. Look forward to your update.
    – BramMooij
    Nov 18, 2015 at 22:20
  • Disabling Interrupt Moderation didn't fix it, it just went down. Will try the dynamic IP tomorrow.
    – Daniel
    Nov 19, 2015 at 1:12
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Looks like its a known issue (though in windows 7), and windows 10 ought to have the same network stack.

Try turning off receive side scaling. Open a administrative command prompt (I like to use Windows Key - x to open the magic console) and type in netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled. See if that helps.

Sounds like its an older machine, and nvidia NICs and chipsets are somewhat well known for being flaky. I'd consider the 20 quid or so to get a pci or pci-e network card.

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  • So if I disable RSS and it works, will there be a major performance degradation?
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 3:59
  • Trivially slightly higher processor load in theory. And of course, you can re-enable it easily. Its probably one of the simpler things to try when troubleshooting something like this.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Nov 18, 2015 at 4:18
  • I'll try this in the morning. If it works you get the +50 as well (as if you needed it with 81+k...)
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 5:15
  • 1
    Its just imaginary internet points. I typically give away any rep I get in bounties (and at the moment a bit more actually) to stuff that interests me, or great answers. Its more the warm fuzzy feeling of remembering and finding an obscure factoid ;)
    – Journeyman Geek
    Nov 18, 2015 at 5:20
  • OK, so I ran that command about 3 hours ago and it just dropped now.
    – Daniel
    Nov 18, 2015 at 17:18

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