Totally Bizzare Network Problem

[bryan64]

Home Network weirdness (dropped packets perhaps)

Ok let's see if I can explain this. I have 4 computers on a home network that includes the cable modem, 2 routers (one is wireless) and a switch. One of the computers will randomly lose the network connection (usually during times of non-use) and the only thing that fixed it was restarting the computer. It acts like you unplugged the ethernet cable. It started happening after I installed SP2 for Windows Home.

I the built my new computer and it work perfectly. The other computers work perfectly as well. They all network and have internet. So I thought the NIC in this one comp was twitchy (integrated Nvidia NIC). So I decided to upgrade this comp so I could have a gigabit connection with my new comp. But yet the problem remains.

It now drops the connection during transfers between the two as well as non-use. I now it has something to do with computer itself and not the NIC as I have the same problem on the new card. And when this happens alll the other comps work fine.

Any ideas? Somebody had suggested an IP number conflict, but all my comps and the network printer have static IP's.

Again this happened AFTER I installed SP2. The new comp had a fresh install of Windows Home SP2 (I bought the update that has SP2 already in it).

All computers are running Zone Alarm but it was turned off on the comp in question the last time this happened.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

It could be a stretch, but I remember that I saw a post a while back where someone had a similar problem, and I think the reason was that the PC power settings was shutting down the NIC card... Windows software isn't really my bag, so I could be wrong.

 

[bryan64]

That will be a place to start. It makes sense because I updated to SP2 and I'm it reset that kind of stuff (shoots evil glares at Bill Gates). Thanks.

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

No prob. I hope that works as a solution for you, but knowing Windows, I don't think it is going to be that easy.

 

[blitzkrieg1]

Just a thought, but it could be possible his router is not renewing his DHCP lease??? It might be possible to create a static IP for the NIC MAC address... That might help??? I would also check the router log file to see what happens to the connection at the time the PC drops the connection....

Blitzkrieg1

 

[bryan64]

Just a thought, but it could be possible his router is not renewing his DHCP lease??? It might be possible to create a static IP for the NIC MAC address... That might help??? I would also check the router log file to see what happens to the connection at the time the PC drops the connection....

Blitzkrieg1

No I don't think that would be the problem as I can't use the windows repair function in the network connection window and I assume that if it doesn't renew the DHCP lease for one computer it wouldn't do it for any of the comps. I will check the log file and what's happening there. I am going to check the power thingy right now.

 

[bryan64]

So far so good. I also have iTunes running that comp to see if that "keeps" the connection open.

 

[bryan64]

I spoke to soon. The power usage thought did not work. I had turned off iTunes and later tried to connect to that comp and I got nothing. I went to that comp to confirm and sure enough, no internet. No connection of any kind. Since this happened AFTER installing SP2, I wonder if REPAIRING the install of XP would help?

Any other brilliant ideas?

 

[bryan64]

Oh one more thing that keep forgetting, when this happens the IP address says it has an Automatic Private IP Address like this 169.xxx.xxx.xxx.

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

That automatic IP address means that Windows is no longer recieving a DHCP address, so it assigns an IP from the 169.X.X.X range by default. I would guess that for whatever reason, the computer loses the lease on the DHCP address, and it isn't getting a new one.... as for why... We would have to look more at your network.

You said before that you have 4 PC's on this network. How many addresses do you have in the routers DHCP pool??

I would suggest trying to roll the PC back to Service Pack 1, and see if the problem persists. Do any of the other PC's have the same service pack installed without the problem??