Losing Network Connection

[poorman_65]

My Setup
===========
I am running WinXP SP2 with all of the lates updates. I have an
on-board Marvell Yukon and have also tried disabling that and
installing a new DLink network card. I have re-formatted the hard drive
and installed from scratch. All drivers that I am aware of have been
updated with the latest and I have updated the motherboard bios and the
firmware on some devices.

My computer is one of 4 on my home network, along with a few other
networked devices. My notebook uses a wireless connection and the
others are all wired. I have a DLink DI-624M Router that connects to my
cable modem. My problem machine connects to a switch under my desk that
in turn connects to a switch in my wiring closet that is then connected
to the router. I am currently setup to use DHCP.

My Problem
============
I bring up my computer and open a command prompt and then start a ping
to another system on my network.

I start up Everquest II (just to load up the connection) and it starts
its long process of downloading updates from the web.

Everything goes fine for varying lengths of time. At some point I will
see the ping start to fail. Once this happens, the connection is dead.
I cannot access anything.

The status of the Lan Connection still shows as connected and I get a
valid IP and stuff from ipconfig.

I have tried to do a release/renew, but it never works. Rebooting
restores the connection.

I noticed in the status panel when I had the DLink card installed that
the Sent value was cleared to 0, whereas the Received value was still
reflected what had been done. I am not sure if this is a clue or not.

I have tried a different cable and also a different port on the switch.
I have also re-installed XP to a re-formatted drive. I also tried
unplugging the router and then restarting it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Chuck]

My Setup
===========
I am running WinXP SP2 with all of the lates updates. I have an
on-board Marvell Yukon and have also tried disabling that and
installing a new DLink network card. I have re-formatted the hard drive
and installed from scratch. All drivers that I am aware of have been
updated with the latest and I have updated the motherboard bios and the
firmware on some devices.

My computer is one of 4 on my home network, along with a few other
networked devices. My notebook uses a wireless connection and the
others are all wired. I have a DLink DI-624M Router that connects to my
cable modem. My problem machine connects to a switch under my desk that
in turn connects to a switch in my wiring closet that is then connected
to the router. I am currently setup to use DHCP.

My Problem
============
I bring up my computer and open a command prompt and then start a ping
to another system on my network.

I start up Everquest II (just to load up the connection) and it starts
its long process of downloading updates from the web.

Everything goes fine for varying lengths of time. At some point I will
see the ping start to fail. Once this happens, the connection is dead.
I cannot access anything.

The status of the Lan Connection still shows as connected and I get a
valid IP and stuff from ipconfig.

I have tried to do a release/renew, but it never works. Rebooting
restores the connection.

I noticed in the status panel when I had the DLink card installed that
the Sent value was cleared to 0, whereas the Received value was still
reflected what had been done. I am not sure if this is a clue or not.

I have tried a different cable and also a different port on the switch.
I have also re-installed XP to a re-formatted drive. I also tried
unplugging the router and then restarting it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What error / observation do you get when doing a release / renew?

Have you tried doing this same process from another computer? Have you tried
bypassing both switches?

Is the ping to another computer on the same switch, or connected to the router?
When the ping fails, do all computers lose Internet service, or just
connectivity to your computer?

Try PingPlotter (free) that might give you a more introspective look at what's
failing:
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/02/diagnosing-network-problems-using_11.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/02/diagnosing-network-problems-using_11.html

 

[poorman_65]

I am not at home right now so I can't give you exact messages or
anything. When I try to do a release/renew, the release works and
clears out my IP to 0.0.0.0. The renew fails, but I can't give the
exact message now. I think that it times out waiting for the DHCP
reply.

I am able to access everything from my notebook. While I have been
trying to debug this on my desktop, I still have my notebook running
Everquest, accessing the Web, and accessing other systems on my
network. It is using the wireless connection directly to the router.

I haven't tried bypassing the switches as that is a bit of a challenge.
I could easily bypass the one under my desk, but I would drop
everything else off in order to bypass the one in the wiring closet. I
can try it if you think it might tell us something.

The system that I am pinging is on the second switch, not the one I am
directly connected to. The only reason that I have the ping going is to
know when the connection has died.

Tonight I am going to check the router log and was planning to try a
different router port. I was also going to make sure that I don't have
any power management thing kicking in my pc. I will play around with
PingPlotter and see if that tells me something.