DELL randomly drops Internet connection yet still talks to router

closed

lights and mcafee? different ethernet cable/port?

Check in eventvwr for any message relating to tcpip/network card.

does it happen after a period of inactivity (ie power saving)

If you have a usb key, try this http://www.pcwintech.com/files/shanes_toolbox/Repair_Network.zip

untick ipv6 support

Ed_Jogg

closed wrote: »

lights and mcafee? different ethernet cable/port?

1) Lights -- there are now two wireless laptops on the network, in the care of my teenage sons -- may take some time to persuade both laptops to be turned off so I can look at this
2) McAfee -- currently running with firewall off (other stuff, such as AV, is still on)
3) Already using a different ethernet cable (see earlier in thread)
4) Only one ethernet socket on the PC

closed wrote: »

Check in eventvwr for any message relating to tcpip/network card.

Wow - not looked in here before. More later...

closed wrote: »

does it happen after a period of inactivity (ie power saving)

I usually shutdown the PC overnight and my wife turns it on in the afternoon, and quite often it fails to connect. (Most frustrating, as she doesn't feel able to do the recovery process that seems to work. So I get it in the neck when I get in from work for having not fixed it yet!) This afternoon was a case in point.

closed wrote: »

If you have a usb key, try this http://www.pcwintech.com/files/shanes_toolbox/Repair_Network.zip

Is this 'when failed' or just any time?

closed wrote: »

untick ipv6 support

Done -- did this before repairing this time (I'm back on the problem PC now, as my laptop was purloined by my son...)

================
OK, eventvwr -- hadn't seen this before. There's a lot in it, and searching looks tricky. Looking under the Custom Views - Administrative Events section there are a few interesting things. (All except the first are taken from today's logs, ie since the PC was turned on after lunch.):
This warning appears whenever the PC is turned off -- why is this Wireless LAN service still running?

WLAN AutoConfig service has successfully stopped.

This error message is seen when the computer is powered on:

Unable to initialize the security package Kerberos for server side authentication. The data field contains the error number.

But the next lot are more interesting. I've no idea what's going on with these, but "STUGH91ST-PC" is the name of my other son's Vista laptop that's connecting by wireless to the router. The first three occurred in sequence over the space of half an hour:

The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer STUGH91ST-PC that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on transport NetBT_Tcpip_{547C0E6C-7307-4A20-BD51-754BE. The master browser is stopping or an election is being forced.

The browser service was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\STUGH91ST-PC on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{547C0E6C-7307-4A20-BD51-754BED4B0F34}.

The browser service has failed to retrieve the backup list too many times on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{547C0E6C-7307-4A20-BD51-754BED4B0F34}. The backup browser is stopping.

This related one happened several times subsequently:

The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer STUGH91ST-PC that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on transport NetBT_Tcpip_{547C0E6C-7307-4A20-BD51-754BE. The master browser is stopping or an election is being forced.

[Just looked at Wikipedia, and the Master Browser probably relates to the Browser Service that provides 'Network Neighbourhood' information for all computers connected to a network. Therefore, possibly not relevant to these investigations.]

I couldn't see any errors/warnings relating to tcp/ip, but there is so much in here, how do you find it? Which log area should I be looking in, and how can I search for just tcpip events?

closed

By lights I meant the one relating to the ethernet port on the router, same with swapping ports.

Ed_Jogg

closed wrote: »

By lights I meant the one relating to the ethernet port on the router, same with swapping ports.

I think it's lit regardless of the state of the PC's internet connection. (That is, with the physical ethernet connected, it is still lit when the PC loses connection.)

(I thought you were still asking whether the wireless light flickered when the ethernet PC was communicating. Don't have an answer for that yet)

Ed_Jogg

OK, regarding the router lights, now that the laptops are off...

The wireless status light remains lit, flickering occasionally, but mostly steady.
The 'Internet' and 'Ethernet' lights flicker in unison when a data transfer takes place (eg loading a new page), any flickering on the wireless is independent.

Changing the ethernet cable to a different router port, the associated router status LED changed to match. The internet connection handled the cable change without fuss, although the plug was only out a matter of seconds.

closed

You can't do much really until it's in a failed state, the switching leads, running repair_network utility, and looking at lights was meant to be done then.

I think the browse master election and wireless stuff is a red herring, did this used to be a wireless pc btw?

Vistas event viewer is not the easiest thing to navigate, logs far too much, and it's difficult to advise what to look for, just anything odd at the time it fails.

If you've disabled ipv6 (and rebooted) could you post a new ipconfig /all to make it easier to compare working with failing logs.

Did you install any virgin software when you got the router?

What does Vista's network connection screen look like when it drops

Apart from that, all I can think of is having a browse around the network card hardware settings, and tcpip settings to see if anything stands out.

Do the traceroutes include the router ip yet?

http://pccheckup.dellfix.com/sswebcheck/ctss_welcome.asp

New router? https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2464449

Ed_Jogg

I'll need to do a proper reply this evening. (Distracted by BBC Red Button showing re-runs of the Monaco Grand Prix from 2009, 1980, 1984, ... During this time, PC went into sleep mode, and also lost its connection again. Grrr. Must go to bed!!)

Some quick answers: tried repair_network utility and it didn't recover the connection; PC used to be connected by wireless dongle to an ADSL wireless router, until we went to cable -- we had occasional problems then, but I think that was the router. traceroutes still don't include the router

Ed_Jogg

My apologies to closed for not replying previously but the situation was rather overtaken by events.

In parallel with this problem (indeed, as part of trying to resolve it) I was being given assistance by Microsoft Support to find out why Windows Update wouldn't work. The eventual suspicion was that McAfee Security Suite was somehow getting in the way, although we never had enough time to prove this conclusively.

Having just about resolved Windows Update, the hard disk started encountering read errors, and got to the point where Windows wouldn't boot. With the help of a more specialised forum I was able to create an Ubuntu boot CD and salvage all the data, following which I had to do a complete new Vista install on a new hard disk. The opportunity was taken to update the security packages, so I now have a raft of free (recommended) software in place of McAfee -- Outpost Firewall, avast! anti-virus, WinPatrol, Malwarebytes Anti-malware (manually-run weekly update and scan) and Spyware Blaster (manual weekly update) -- and everything has been 'sweet as a nut' since. What's more, following the install, the bare memory usage is now around the 35-39% mark (of 2GB) rather than the 45-48%+ of the PC as supplied. And I have removed some other irritations: now use VLC, which hopefully avoids downloading Quicktime (we shall see!), and Nero in place of Roxio.

So, my grateful thanks to everyone who attempted to help resolve this issue, and my sincere apologies to the other poor DELL-Vista-Virgin users suffering the same problem as I was and who are still no nearer finding a (less drastic) solution.

Fairwinds

6 months on, and I'm still getting this problem, where the internet connection seems to drop and goes to local only rather than local and internet. It seemed to have got better for a while but is now back as bad as ever.

I seem to have worked out that the problem doesn't seem to be there if i boot up in safe mode with networking but otherwise the connection drops on a regular basis, sometimes coming back on it's own accord after a few minutes sometimes a re boot necessary.

Also, can't seem to watch a full episode on 4 on demand without it stopping numerous times - surely that can't be right on a 10 meg Virgin media connection.

Any help appreciated

Ed_Jogg

You know what, we're still seeing it occasionally too! Problem only now occurs when Vista goes into sleep mode in any way. I have seen on other forums (fora?) that Vista is known for having issues with components going into and out of sleep mode; and my recollection is that there wasn't a ready solution (except Windows 7 !!) (Sorry)

The video stopping is likely a different issue.