Windows randomly drops half of connection

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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.

Best Answer

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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