Question NordVPN blocking ethernet connection even when not running?

[BaaaaL44]

Hi!

Today (and last week at some point) I encountered an extremely strange issue that I cannot make head or tails of. I noticed that my wired (ethernet) connection wasn't working, and neither could I connect to Wifi using my onboard wireless. The Windows Control Panel correctly identified the name of the network, and claimed that some bytes were being sent and received, but I was unable to open any websites, and the system tray showed the globe icon with the "no internet connection" prompt. Weirdly, my PS5 had wired connection, all other devices in the household connected perfectly fine to Wifi, and when we plugged the same ethernet cable into my GF's laptop, it also connected just fine.

I called my ISP, and after running through the usual (totally useless, let's admit) hoops of restarting/resetting the router, restarting my PC, trying a different port, etc. In the end, the technician said he was pretty sure it was a motherboard ethernet fault and to contact the vendor for an RMA or a PCIE card if I didn't want my whole (3000$) rig disassembled and messed with. He also said he would try reinstalling the MOBO Realtek ethernet drivers first just to be sure.

I downloaded the drivers to my phone and hooked up the USB, but before I clicked "uninstall", I recalled that through the past weeks, I've seen multiple NordVPN background services running even though I disabled run on windows startup, and I also very explicitly disabled its killswitch functionality. I only use NordVPN once every few weeks when I want to access content not available in my country or when I want to hide my privacy sharing controversial opinions online (I live in a quasi-dictatorship so losing my job is a big no), but I happened to use it yesterday evening to access Reddit. So before I jumped the gun on the driver reinstall, I decided to experimentally remove all 3 NordVPN components from the PC (the software itself, the update client and something called TAP, no clue what that is).

Lo and behold, the EXACT moment the last component was removed, the system tray indicated that connection was established and my ethernet connection has been working steadily since.

Does anyone have a clue what may have caused this? I've been using NordVPN on and off for about 6 months now and this only started happening about a week ago. Last time it was solved by simply restarting my MOBO ethernet module.

Thanks!

 

[bill001g]

VPN clients are buggy. In many ways you are lucky it uninstalled correctly. I have had to reinstall windows because of one vpn client. This was not even one of those so called free ones that force ads into the browser.

Nord is better than most but they still are almost hacks in they way they hook into the OS. Sometimes windows is too smart, I think my problems were related to a windows patch that installed itself....but it could also be I was trying multiple vpn one after another to compare.

You could try one of the opensource vpn clients. Most support both wireguard and openvpn. Since you manually configure these there are no secret scripts changing registry settings.

I got frustrated with the whole mess and the issue of some traffic sometime bypassing the vpn and now always run vpn on routers. They only run with the larger VPN providers that do not require you use their stupid software clients. The only issue is unless you use a small pc as a router consumer routers will limit your bandwidth....most have small cpu and do not include the hardware accelerated encryption instructions.