Question Issue with LAN at PC start up (Gigabyte Aorus Elite X z790)

[Oseriduun]

Motherboard - Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite X wi-fi 7 (bought in december 2023)
Windows - 11
CPU - 14700k

Recently, I've been experiencing issues with my LAN connection. I don't have much experience in this area and and I have no idea what exactly it is I'm even experiencing.

Initially, while in use, I'd notice my connection drop for a few seconds, randomly and infrequently but when I ran a ping test, I noticed at at least once in several hours I'd see " General hardware failure" at least once for the day. I thought that maybe it was my direct connection to my router port (maybe it was going bad) but when I removed the cable and plugged it into my switch, everything went back to normal.

I decided to change out the cable to cat6 just in case and I thought everything was working fine but I noticed stuff like twitch stream viewing etc. was unstable. Alongside this, sometimes I'd lose connect while gaming (WoW) but I thought maybe the reason I got kicked was due to addon issues so I don't know if it's related.

Other ping tests revealed timed out intervals randomly but for the most part it was fine. Upon running a speed test, I noticed that my usual 300mb connection barely crossed 10mb during this period. HOWEVER, when I plugged and replugged the ethernet cable into ANY port (router or switch), everything sorted itself out; ping was perfect and speed test went right back up to 300mb.

Also, sometimes when I immediately booted up my pc, I started noticing this problem happening SOMETIMES immediately until I unplugged and plugged the cable back into the router. To me, it feels like my connection is crap once I startup my pc and only fixes itself after I have to unplug the cable.

Let me be clear that this does not consistently happen but what does consistently seem to fix the issue is simply unplugging and re-plugging my Ethernet cable (tested with multiple cables, all new and tested, all work fine).

Can anyone help me figure out what this problem may be? Is this due to a bad port on the motherboard? I'm almost certain I have no issues with my networking setup or even ISP since no other PC on the network experiences these issues.

 

[bill001g]

Bad ports on a motherboard a very rare. The 2.5g ones have a history of issue but your board is extremely new and intel claims they fixed their hardware almost 2 years ago now so it is unlikely you have one of those old chips.

Note I will assume the switch you are using has 1gbit port and not 2.5g.

Although unlikely I would check both windows and the bios for any low power or green settings. These have been know to cause very strange issue.

Try to compare IPCONFIG /all output when it is working and when it is broken. You might also check the windows status for the ethernet port. What you are looking for is the port speed and duplex. Maybe it is doing something silly like dropping to 10mbps half duplex. Modern machines should always be at full gigabit speed.

Even though you already replaced the cable I would still try another one first. It is less costly than a new nic card. Massive amounts of fake cable sold and 2.5g ports are much more sensitive to cables that do not meet the ethernet standards.

Even for 2.5g speeds you only need cat5e. Cat6 is fine if you get it cheaper. What is key is the cable must be pure copper (no CCA) and have wire size 22-24. The most common type of fake cable is that flat stuff that has wires that much too thin.
All sellers of valid cable very clearly tell you this data, they know all about the fake cables and what you to know their cables are valid.

If all else fails a ethernet nic that fits in a pcie slot is fairly inexpensive.