PC loses internet connection?

Ghuraba

Ghuraba

Ghuraba

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Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
1,347
Location
Leeds
Hi there

For about 1 year now my PC won’t pick up the internet connection when I turn my PC on about 50% of the time. To get a connection established I have to continually disable/enable the network adaptor. Restarting the PC sometimes works too. I have it hardwired to the router and have changed ports and cables. I never lose connection once established unless the PC is in sleep mode. Upon restarting it sometimes happens. It is a BT phone line connection not high speed fibre optic. Could it be the MB?
 
I experienced similar. Possibly unrelated to yours but my internet connection would quite often (more often than not) be unavailable for up to 5 minutes or so from boot up. Once it achieved the connection it would be perfectly fine. Running windows troubleshooter would suggest a DNS problem on the PC. Seemed reasonable to me as all other devices would be fine. Tablets, phone, Echo dots etc, nas drive (wired and wireless) All suggestions and tests showed the router to be fine. Never could narrow it down to any particular setting or config in the PC though.
Then my broadband deal expired. I signed up with a different provider. Got a replacement/different router with the new deal. Problem went away. Just like that. So all my patient diagnostics, tests and investigations were leading me up a garden path. Everything pointed to my PC being the issue. Nope. It was the router all along. Or maybe it was just a fluke but 4 months later, still no internet issue at all.
 
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it is a pain. Was ok with VM. Moved new house only old phone lines here. Never did it originally Just started maybe 6 months or more ago. I might try a spare router I have. After that not sure what it can be.
 
Is the PC hard wired directly or does it go via powerlines?

When it's not working, does the interface show as connected? So when you currently right click and choose disable and then enable, before doing that choose status. Does it show a link speed?

Can you ping things by IP address? Open a command prompt and ping 8.8.8.8. Also try to ping your router.
 
Not sure what you mean by the PC being connected by power lines. I will try the other suggestions when it happens next.
 
Bit of a long shot, but have you checked your network as well as power settings for network connections in Windows/OS? There's some settings there where it allows the system to reduce power to the network ports, or the bus it's attached to, or the capability to outright turn it off completely. That might impact on how the system gets out of hibernate/sleep and possibly run into connection issues.

The other thing I'd check is the hold on time for how long each ip is leased from the router for. If it's set too low, your system might be powering back up but holding onto an IP that's been given to another device.
 
No idea really, but something to think about, are you assigned a dynamic IP address from your ISP, or a fixed IP address? If it's dynamic, it could be something to do with this and DHCP, and the computer is having trouble getting an IP address.
 
Could try picking up an Ethernet addin card (~£20) and see if the issue follows or not. Are your NIC / Ethernet drivers and BIOS up-to-date on the board? In case it is just a weird bug.
 
Ah. Just TV and PC. I think I will try a dedicated Ethernet card just to see. I have an onboard Realtek@GbE LAN chip from a cheap Gigabyte X570 Gaming X. Maybe a cheap £10 card to test it out can’t be worse than what comes built into the MB.
 
the-evaluator said:
Is the PC hard wired directly or does it go via powerlines?

When it's not working, does the interface show as connected? So when you currently right click and choose disable and then enable, before doing that choose status. Does it show a link speed?

Can you ping things by IP address? Open a command prompt and ping 8.8.8.8. Also try to ping your router.
Click to expand...
So my pc just woke from sleep mode and connection is lost again. Internet icon shows as connected. If I ping 8.8.8.8 the result is destination not reachable. The Ethernet media state is showing enabled. Status says link speed 1.0Gbps IPv6 connectivity: internet and IPv4 connectivity: no internet access.
 
Ghuraba said:
So my pc just woke from sleep mode and connection is lost again. Internet icon shows as connected. If I ping 8.8.8.8 the result is destination not reachable. The Ethernet media state is showing enabled. Status says link speed 1.0Gbps IPv6 connectivity: internet and IPv4 connectivity: no internet access.
Click to expand...
If you run ipconfig/all in a command prompt, is the IPv4 address a 169.254.x.x address?

Getting a v6 address but not a v4 address suggests a problem with DHCP - the IPv6 address will be acquired from router advertisments, but the v4 address needs DHCP to work.

What router is it?

Does ipconfig/renew on the PC succeed and get a non-autoconfigured IPv4 address?
 
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