Internet cuts out for a few seconds every hour/ hour and a half

[darthalex99]

I have been having internet connectivity problems as stated in the title. I am on a college internet switch in my dorm on a wired connection. I have had IT do everything in their power and they don't see any issue regarding their infrastructure. I was told to turn off IPV6 to see if that fixed the problem and it did not. This issue has happened on two different computers both running Windows 10. What could be causing this issue??

 

[jsmithepa]

You actually notice these few seconds drop-offs? To me, I just think, oh, the site is having a little hiccup!

You must get a message, what does it say? and how to you bring it back?

 

[Solandri]

Open up a command prompt and type

ipconfig /all

Look at the DHCP lease obtained and DHCP lease expire times. If the DHCP lease is only good for 60-90 minutes, that's probably it. Your Internet may be dropping out while the computer renews the DHCP lease (its dynamically assigned IP address). If the lease obtained time coincides with your last Internet dropout, it's almost definitely the problem. And you can expect the next dropout to happen at the lease expiration time. Normally DHCP leases are 24 hours, but larger organizations like schools frequently shorten it so they can more quickly recycle unused IP addresses (e.g. addresses released by mobile devices which have left the area).

I'm still trying to figure out why, but sometimes Win 10 (and Win 8) seems to take an unusually long time renewing a DHCP lease, which can cause you to lose Internet for a few seconds. I think it's an interaction with something else, because another Win 10 computer right next to the problem one works fine. So sorry, I don't have a solution. But maybe this might help narrow down your search.

 

[darthalex99]

Open up a command prompt and type

ipconfig /all

Look at the DHCP lease obtained and DHCP lease expire times. If the DHCP lease is only good for 60-90 minutes, that's probably it. Your Internet may be dropping out while the computer renews the DHCP lease (its dynamically assigned IP address). If the lease obtained time coincides with your last Internet dropout, it's almost definitely the problem. And you can expect the next dropout to happen at the lease expiration time. Normally DHCP leases are 24 hours, but larger organizations like schools frequently shorten it so they can more quickly recycle unused IP addresses (e.g. addresses released by mobile devices which have left the area).

I'm still trying to figure out why, but sometimes Win 10 (and Win 8) seems to take an unusually long time renewing a DHCP lease, which can cause you to lose Internet for a few seconds. I think it's an interaction with something else, because another Win 10 computer right next to the problem one works fine. So sorry, I don't have a solution. But maybe this might help narrow down your search.

The lease goes from about 11am to 3pm. The problem occurred recently within the hour so I guess that rules the DHCP lease out. Any other suggestions?

 

[darthalex99]

You actually notice these few seconds drop-offs? To me, I just think, oh, the site is having a little hiccup!

You must get a message, what does it say? and how to you bring it back?

I notice the issue while I am playing video games of all types so it isn't the site having a hiccup.

 

[jsmithepa]

One possibility is the DHCP has a relatively short lease time. Is under the control of the college and nothing u can do about it. This is actually typical of large installations, if DHCP lease time is too long, they may run out of IP and BAM suddenly people can't get in.