Question Ethernet connection drops after sleep mode and at random intervals, gives yellow triangle

[troubleshootcompute]

Hello, first time using Tom's so apologies in advance if I haven't supplied enough information!

A few weeks ago my connection began cutting out after starting my PC from sleep mode, displaying a yellow triangle in the taskbar. To reconnect I need to crawl under my desk, unplug the ethernet cable for 5~ seconds and then plug it back in. Strangely enough this doesn't happen every time I start the computer from sleep mode, though the odds are higher if I leave it in sleep mode for longer periods of time.

To add to the confusion the yellow triangle sometimes appear on its own while I'm using the computer, disconnecting me the same way that sleepmode does. This happens about once a day at most and requires me to replug the cable two times before it starts working again.

I've attempted to

• 
  ■ Uncheck the "Allow this computer to turn this device off to save power" box for the network adapter in Device Manager
  ■ Disable Energy-Efficient Internet under Advanced for the network adapter in Device Manager
  ■ Update the network adapter drivers (and even tried some old ones just in case)
  ■ Try the ipconfig /renew and /flushdns commands
  ■ Disable and re-enable the antivirus (Avast)
  ■ Diagnose with the windows network diagnose tool (Gave me a "Default Gateway not available")

I'm not too keen on reinstalling Windows and most solutions I can find appear to cater towards laptops losing connection when entering sleep and poor wifi connections, so any other ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Technical info:

Windows 10 Version 1809
Asus PRIME H310-Plus
Intel Core i7 8700K 3.7 GHz
Network Adapter: Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller (version 10.31.828.2018)
ISP: Bredband2

I live in a student corridor apartment so I have no control over anything beyond the ethernet outlet in my wall; the only thing I've connected is my computer however.

 

[Ralston18]

Are you using wired or wireless. I understand wired but you do refer to "poor wifi conditions". Is there wifi somewhere along the network path to your computer?

One immediate thing to check is to ensure that your computer has only the wired network adapter enabled. The computer should have only the wired or wireless adapter (as applicable) enabled. Not both.

1) Try another known working Ethernet cable betwee PC and Ethernet wall jack.

2) Ethernet wall jack may have a loose connection inside. You may need to contact the supporting technical staff to have the Ethernet wall jack, tested, inspected, and possible repunched to secure the internal wire connections.

3) The problem could also be on the other end of your Ethernet wall jack connection - likely at what is known as a patch panel. Again you will probably need the technical support folks to look at that as well.

 

[troubleshootcompute]

Are you using wired or wireless. I understand wired but you do refer to "poor wifi conditions". Is there wifi somewhere along the network path to your computer?

One immediate thing to check is to ensure that your computer has only the wired network adapter enabled. The computer should have only the wired or wireless adapter (as applicable) enabled. Not both.

1) Try another known working Ethernet cable betwee PC and Ethernet wall jack.

2) Ethernet wall jack may have a loose connection inside. You may need to contact the supporting technical staff to have the Ethernet wall jack, tested, inspected, and possible repunched to secure the internal wire connections.

3) The problem could also be on the other end of your Ethernet wall jack connection - likely at what is known as a patch panel. Again you will probably need the technical support folks to look at that as well.

Thank you for your quick answer! The "poor wifi conditions" was just in regards to the threads I could find when googling the issue; my connection is all ethernet (hence why those threads weren't very useful).

Asking my corridor neighbors no one else seems to have this problem. I'll try to get my hands on another Ethernet cable asap and report back with the results.

 

[troubleshootcompute]

After testing another cable the problem unfortunately persisted.

I won't be able to contact the technical staff until after the weekend so are there any other possible solutions I could try in the meanwhile?

(I should add that the occassional connection drop when actually using the computer isn't that common relative to the time I spend at my computer. The sleep mode drop is reproducible, while the once-a-day drop is not.)

Update: I poked around some more in the Network Adapter settings in Device Manager and the yellow triangle appears whenever I do any changes (like for example disabling/enabling Wake On Magic Packet). Forces me to reconnect the cable twice before the connection is back again. Does this mean that the problem is more likely related to the adapter/software?

 

[Ralston18]

I am still thinking that the problem is physical. If the problem was driver or configuration related it is likely that you would not have any connectivity at all. Caveat being some "perfect storm" of software issues resulting in a bottleneck of some sort.

If a new cable did not resolve the problem (trusting that both ends plugged in fully and firmly) then the problem is elsewhere.

You might try holding the ethernet plug where it connects to the wall outlet. Wiggle, twist move side to side, etc. Not hard but just enough to see how much movement there is. Especially with respect to the entire outlet. Could lose complete connection if there is some wire inside just loose but not yet totally disconnected.

And the same problem could be on the other end of the cable serving your ethernet wall outlet. Could even be a problem somewhere along the cable run to your room.

And on/in the computer ensure that the network adapter is fully and firmly in its slot. If you are using the motherboard's built-in adapter then a different approach is needed.

Check in Reliability History/Manager and Event Viewer. What you are looking for are any error messages etc. that correspond to the time of the disconnections. Just as a matter of elimination to ensure that there is not some software problem involved.

 

[troubleshootcompute]

I am still thinking that the problem is physical. If the problem was driver or configuration related it is likely that you would not have any connectivity at all. Caveat being some "perfect storm" of software issues resulting in a bottleneck of some sort.

If a new cable did not resolve the problem (trusting that both ends plugged in fully and firmly) then the problem is elsewhere.

You might try holding the ethernet plug where it connects to the wall outlet. Wiggle, twist move side to side, etc. Not hard but just enough to see how much movement there is. Especially with respect to the entire outlet. Could lose complete connection if there is some wire inside just loose but not yet totally disconnected.

And the same problem could be on the other end of the cable serving your ethernet wall outlet. Could even be a problem somewhere along the cable run to your room.

And on/in the computer ensure that the network adapter is fully and firmly in its slot. If you are using the motherboard's built-in adapter then a different approach is needed.

Check in Reliability History/Manager and Event Viewer. What you are looking for are any error messages etc. that correspond to the time of the disconnections. Just as a matter of elimination to ensure that there is not some software problem involved.

Wiggling the plug/wall outlet produced no results; connection did not go down.

The network adapter is built into the motherboard I believe, didn't plug one in when I built it.

Reliability Monitor did not show anything wrong. Despite losing connection once while using the computer yesterday there were only Informational events and none matched the time of the lost connection (and neither any mention of the several more connection losses from sleep mode).

The Event Viewer was much more successful however. The warnings correspond to the connection loss after having put the computers to sleep mode, shown below. I checked the previously mentioned connection loss from yesterday and while there were warnings it did not look any different from putting the computer to sleep mode.

The other warnings above all have the same message.

 

[Ralston18]

Turn off automatic sleep/power saver - just as an interim "test" to determine if connectivity is stable thereafter.

I also noted the reference to wpad. Found a couple of "fixes" but I am not sure about them.

One step at a time so hold on any wpad actions other than letting the technical staff know about the error.

Find out what they think.

 

[troubleshootcompute]

Auto sleep/power saver off did nothing unfortunately, but that felt pretty expected.

What might be noteworthy however is that I realized my laptop running Windows 10 had an ethernet port (always used wifi for it), so I disconnected my desktop computer and hooked up the laptop with the ethernet cable.

Turns out the problem is not reproducible on my laptop at all. I've put it manually to sleep mode and let it fall asleep on its own; neither produces the connection drop (there's a yellow triangle for a few seconds after it is brought out of sleep mode but as far as I know this is standard behavior, and internet starts working again on its own right afterwards, unlike my desktop computer which stays disconnected until I manually replug the cable). No errors found elsewhere either.

Considering I can't reproduce the problem when connecting the ethernet cable to another computer I feel sceptical about the issue being in the wires in the walls, though I'm no network expert. Is it still the most likely issue?
Also thanks for all your help so far, I appreciate it tons!

 

[Ralston18]

No problem and that was some good troubleshooting - narrows the problem down to the desktop itself.

On the laptop, via Event Viewer, do you see any Events that mention "wpad"?

Google "wpad" (search the last year) and do some reading. No need to immediately do anything or make changes.

Just look for links that match your situation. I found a couple links; however, details matter. You can easily read and check (but do not change) any configuration settings that may be suggested.

Hopefully you will identify some controllable parameter that will be applicable and easily applied.

See what you can find and post accordingly.

 

[troubleshootcompute]

Hello, it's been a while! Had a busy work week so haven't had much time to troubleshoot but I've attempted a few things:

* Network Reset in the Network & Internet Settings menu looked like it worked... Then it didn't.

* I've attempted to download new drivers from Realtek again from a different menu than before, no luck there.

* I've tried changing the DNS manually to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. No luck there either.

* Turned off the firewall and flushed the DNS again for good measure. Doing ipconfig /renew just made me lose my connection.

* I also attempted: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/internet-suddenly-stop-working-for-computer-only/dba1f8ed-e4f3-4ec3-990b-ad31cb93dc51

I did however find that other than wpad, applications and sites like "discord.app", "_ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.cust.bredband2.com" and "cm03-ord.cm.steampowered.com" also appear in the event viewer at the same time with the same message as wpad. So there's that.

Honestly I'm starting to run out of ideas. None of the threads I find seem to suggest anything new, and no one appears to have had this problem exactly.

 

[Ralston18]

What does Event Viewer say about those sites?

Are those sites sites that you expect to see individually or all at once?

What is trying to connect to those sites?

 

[troubleshootcompute]

What does Event Viewer say about those sites?

Are those sites sites that you expect to see individually or all at once?

What is trying to connect to those sites?

They say the same thing that they did with wpad: "Name resolution for the name [SITE/wpad] timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded."
I assume these are just programs trying to access their websites due to needing web access to function, so it makes sense that they would throw a warning at the same time when the connection drops.

 

[Ralston18]

What IP address is being used for the DNS Server?

 

[troubleshootcompute]

Hello, sorry for not replying! I was suggested to try disabling IPv6 in the Ethernet properties in another forum this saturday and have been holding off on trying anything else to confirm that it works.

I no longer get any disconnects from sleepmode these past two days so hopefully this somehow solved the issue. Thank you for your help!