Windows 7 Network Mystery

3

I'm having serious connectivity issues in Windows 7 and I'm out of diagnostic ideas. Here's way too much detail:

  • Machine is about 6 months old, haven't had a problem up until yesterday.
  • Internet connection comes and goes, 'ping google.com' sometimes works, sometimes shows terrible latency and often times out.
  • pinging Google on my other machine (Mac laptop on same wireless network) works fine. No network issues.
  • First noticed the issue yesterday while running a VMWare VM-- all of a sudden, I could not connect to the VM by hostname or IP address

Network Setup

  • Cable modem
  • Wireless router
  • Wireless access point (running DD-WRT) that Windows 7 machine is plugged into via a Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller ethernet port on motherboard

Things I've done to eliminate suspects

  • Called cable company to confirm they didn't see any cable modem issues
  • Reset router and replaced ethernet cable running from modem to router's WAN port
  • Replaced ethernet cable between Windows 7 machine and access point
  • Unplugged from access point, installed brand-new wireless NIC into machine, still saw issues
  • Shut off IPv6 on all network adapters on machine
  • Killed Windows Firewall
  • Disallowed Power Management's "Turn off device to save power"
  • Tried static IP and DHCP
  • Disabled VMWare adapters

I've walked through most of the ideas in this thread, including starting in Safe Mode with Networking (no difference) and the netsh resets.

EDIT: It seems to happen about a minute after the machine boots up. I cannot get System Restore to work.

Tom

Posted 2011-06-16T18:20:41.273

Reputation: 627

Maybe I am missing it from your post, did you uninstall and re-install the driver(s) for the Ethernet , did the driver(s) just update before this started? – N4TKD – 2011-06-16T21:23:20.467

No, haven't touched the drivers, though there were a fair number of Windows Updates in the past two days. Should I just back off to a generic MS driver? – Tom – 2011-06-16T21:39:22.007

1Is the Mac on the same AP as the win7 box. Also I am a little confused since you mention plugging into the access point and not connecting wirelessly. Is this a true access point or does it also have layer 2/3 functionality (is it a wireless router in access point mode)? Is it possible you are behind a double NAT? – Supercereal – 2011-06-17T20:00:04.250

It's an old Linksys WRT-54G with DD-WRT on it, running as a bridge. I'm plugged into it and it's connected wirelessly to the main router. – Tom – 2011-06-18T15:47:59.487

Just plugged the laptop into the access point and saw timeouts at the same time as the Windows box. Looks like the access point's finally giving up the ghost. Thanks. – Tom – 2011-06-18T15:56:38.273

Answers

0

Kyle helped me track it down-- problem was a hardware one (old access point).

Tom

Posted 2011-06-16T18:20:41.273

Reputation: 627

0

  1. Do a tracert google.com and see where it is slow.
  2. Go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and run a test there.

KCotreau

Posted 2011-06-16T18:20:41.273

Reputation: 24 985

Yes, see above: I've connected via another laptop wirelessly with no issues. I don't think tracert will tell me much as most of the time ping never even connects. – Tom – 2011-06-16T18:53:05.413

Sorry, don't know how I missed that...let me think, and I will post back. I may have to leave for a few hours though. Have you pinged by IP address to rule out issues with DNS? Try ping 199.191.128.103 (an AT&T name server I use). Have you considered system restore going back to before yesterday? – KCotreau – 2011-06-16T18:56:05.547

No worries. I was actually just up on the machine and did a tracert and pinged Google's DNS server via IP (8.8.8.8). Nothing really interesting on the ping-- it was working fine, but I got fine responses intermittently. However, the tracert times out on the 2nd hop: it gets to the router, then shows a timeout and then continues on its way. Any idea what that means? Like maybe I have yet another crappy Linksys router? – Tom – 2011-06-16T19:15:47.287

Never mind: just means the modem is ignoring the request: http://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/fm4a1/tracert_times_out_on_second_hop_ddwrted_router/

– Tom – 2011-06-16T19:18:06.160

It still may be your router is failing or corrupted. I have seen plenty where they do not fail all components at once, like maybe only the wireless goes, or maybe a port on a switch. Try plugging into a different port, and after, if not fixed, resetting it totally, and just rebuild the settings. – KCotreau – 2011-06-16T23:22:32.423

Yeah, I have another router on the way today, but if it were the router, I'd be seeing it on all devices instead of just one. – Tom – 2011-06-17T12:51:28.830

0

I would use the products latest driver, if it has just been update when the problem started, I would roll back to last driver that worked correctly, driver(s) can create these types of problems. I hope this helps

N4TKD

Posted 2011-06-16T18:20:41.273

Reputation: 979

this may actually be the cause and a system restore will solve it. Sometimes the network type (public, domain, private) somehow is lost and has to be reset as well, or that has happened to me at least – datatoo – 2011-06-17T01:54:25.670

Asked: 2011-06-16T18:20:41.273

Viewed: 598 times

Active: 2012-01-18T17:43:31.150