Question Ethernet dodgy after m.2 installation???

[meharp7224]

Got a secondary 1tb drive for storage and installed it today, and now something's gone off with my ethernet connectivity? Everything else is working fine, but periodically my ethernet connection will disconnect and troubleshooting either: restores it by resolving an unavailable default gateway; or, is unable to resolve the issue. It also always connects immediately every time I re-plug in the ethernet cable to the PC.

The only other things I touched while installing the drive was reseating the cpu cables (it was a little dusty inside the case, and they were particularly dusty) and blowing compressed air around the capacitors (also a bit dusty).

Advice would be appreciated, because I am at a total loss here. WiFi works fine, all the other ports in the io are working properly, and the drive is functioning. Also tried a different ethernet cable, which is functional.

Mobo: ASRock B550 PG Velocita
Processor: Ryzen 5500
Ram: x2 HyperX 16GB (32GB overall)
Graphics: Radeon RX 5700 XT
Drives: x2 WD Black SN770 1TB (Primary and storage)

 

[KingLoki]

An installation of a hard drive shouldn't affect your network connection....strange timing??
Seeing it started when you installed the new drive, have you unplugged the new drive and checked the network again??

Another option is to Reset your Network, open a command window (As Administrator)...
Type commands below, press "Enter" after each command......(no quotes on any typing)

"ipconfig /all" ( to see all connection /gateway info!
"ping 192.198.0.1" (or whatever your gateway address is....also try to ping your ipv4 pc address in the list.

Press Enter for each command!

"netsh winsock reset"
"netsh int ip reset"
"netsh advfirewall reset"
"ipconfig /flushdns"
"ipconfig / release"
"ipconfig / renew"

After this close cmd window and reboot to try network connection.

Check the that the network adapter is showing in windows Device Manager and no yellow exclamation marks next to it, and try updating the driver, by right-clicking on it.

 

[Ralston18]

Agree with the preceding post.

However, from the original post I noted:

"but periodically my ethernet connection will disconnect"

and

"WiFi works fine".

Ensure that only network adapter is enabled on the system in question. Not both wired and wireless at the same time.