Ethernet connection drops within timeframe

Question

Hi there, I recently have been having an issue with my desktop where when i boot the computer up, the Internet works for about 15-30 minutes, then just randomly drops to connection and stays in the "Identifying" phase. It seems to have started to happen this week, at the start of which i believe some sort of update had happened with Windows 10. Here's what i have tried so far: 1. I found someone else had to do this, but it made no difference for me: Device Manager/Network device name/Properties/Advanced, turn off Energy Efficient Ethernet and Wake on Magic Packet 2. Updating the drivers form both Intel and Microsoft 3. Completely uninstall device and drive and installed it fresh 4. Do whatever Windows update it says is available 5. sfc /scannow didn't bring up any issues either The only way to fix it is by restarting the computer which can get quite annoying, as i have had to restart 3 times today. This is with a Dell Precision 5810 and the controller is the Intel I217-LM. The build of Windows is Windows 10 Enterprise 20H2 19042.804. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi ,

It seems to have started to happen this week, at the start of which i believe some sort of update had happened with Windows 10.

Before the issue happened, did you do any modifications? Or install any updates?

Please refer to the following steps:

1.When Ethernet connection stays in the "Identifying" phase, please run Network Adapter troubleshooter and check what it reports back.

2.Run IPconfig /all command and compare the outputs with problematic time.

3.Run following command to reset TCP/IP configuration:

netsh winsock reset  
netsh int ip reset  

4.Run following command to renew IP address:

ipconfig /release  
ipconfig /renew   
ipconfig /flushdns  

Best regards,
Candy

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Answer 2

Hi Candy, thanks for your response! The only changes made to the computer once this started to happen was the automatic installation of new updates by Windows. I did used to have this exact same problem with my laptop, and the only thing that fixed it was to downgrade Windows 10 to a previous feature build, and then i disabled Windows update on it. Not a problem since, but i would prefer not to do that on this machine as it is my primary and would like it to be up to date, plus this computer is a fresh install of only 3 months old at this point.

When i went to boot today, i had to start a transfer of files between one drive to another, then i tried to go to the internet but all pages just spin in my browsers, but the ethernet shows as connected, which is odd. In this case, I performed the following steps as requested:

1) Started the network troubleshooter, and it got stuck on "Starting Network Diagnostics" and then eventually it comes back with no problems found and by that point, the network is stuck on Identifying again.
2) Everything looks correct to me with ipconfig
3) Performed the steps

Answer 3

Hi @Matthew Knab ,

The only changes made to the computer once this started to happen was the automatic installation of new updates by Windows.

Let's narrow down whether the issue is related with latest installed patch.

Run Get-Hotfix and find the updates during the time the problem occurred.

Try to uninstall this update and see if the issue can be resolved.

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Answer 4

I think i was able to get it sorted out. I was snooping around and noticed my power options was set to Balanced, which doesn't make too much sense to me as it's a desktop and not a laptop. So i switched it to Ultimate performance, ran some tests, and it hasn't happened again. So I'm guessing something was in that Balanced power option that could have thrown my network adapter off?