Member Avatar for mburns_df

Hi everyone - new to the forums

Here's my problem - it has me so confused.

I recently built a new machine, new everything including the OS which is XP profession that came pre upgraded with SP2. The first weird thing I did was buy a motherboard that did not have on-board ethernet - no big deal I went and got a linksys nic-card stuck it in a PCI slot and windows took care of the rest. However my internet connection isn't working right. After I had everything installed and all the drivers were updated I restarted. Then I opened Internet Explorer (IE) and up comes - so I'm thinking great everything worked out. I close IE and finish installing some audio and video drivers. Then I go to activate windows via the internet but no connection is detected. I try to open IE again and I get a page cannot be displayed. I check my network connection and it looks fine. So I shut down and restart. After boot up I open IE and it comes up fine and I can surf around to a few other pages - then after like 5 min of surfing it stops working again. I called up my broadband provider and everything checked out on their end - they have offered to send out a tech but that will cost me and would rather try my luck on some of these forums first. Anyone have any idea whats going on?

  • 2 Contributors
  • 1 Reply
  • 185 Views
  • 3 Weeks Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by JonnyBlazexx

Dani AI

Generated

Intermittent Internet that works for a short time after boot and then drops usually points to a local negotiation, driver, power-management, or configuration problem rather than the ISP. 's suggestion to try another NIC is a good one, but a few focused checks will quickly show whether this is a Windows/config issue or hardware/line related and can save an unnecessary purchase or service call.

Try these prioritized checks to narrow the cause:

  • Inspect Event Viewer (System/Application) for DHCP, TCP/IP or NIC driver errors and note timestamps that match the dropouts.
  • Capture the network state with ipconfig /all and arp -a so DHCP lease, gateway and MAC details are known.
  • Temporarily disable the Windows firewall and any third-party security software (briefly, while isolated) to rule out blocking.
  • In Device Manager, disable NIC power-saving (uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power") and try toggling advanced NIC offload/flow-control options.
  • Swap the Ethernet cable and router/switch port; try a different PCI slot. If autonegotiation seems flaky, force the NIC and switch to the same speed/duplex (e.g., 100 Mbps full) for testing.
  • Boot a Live Linux/Windows PE or use Safe Mode with Networking to see whether the problem persists outside the installed Windows environment.

Collect these diagnostics before escalating: continuous pings to the gateway and a public IP (ping -t <gateway>, ping -t 8.8.8.8), tracert outputs when timeouts occur, NIC vendor and driver version, and the Event Viewer entries. For , if the link stays up under a Live OS or with a different NIC, the fault is almost certainly driver/firmware or the original NIC hardware; otherwise investigate DHCP/MAC issues on the router or with the ISP. When changing firewall or network settings, do so only briefly and with the machine isolated.

Member Avatar for JonnyBlazexx

Hi everyone - new to the forums

Here's my problem - it has me so confused.

I recently built a new machine, new everything including the OS which is XP profession that came pre upgraded with SP2. The first weird thing I did was buy a motherboard that did not have on-board ethernet - no big deal I went and got a linksys nic-card stuck it in a PCI slot and windows took care of the rest. However my internet connection isn't working right. After I had everything installed and all the drivers were updated I restarted. Then I opened Internet Explorer (IE) and up comes - so I'm thinking great everything worked out. I close IE and finish installing some audio and video drivers. Then I go to activate windows via the internet but no connection is detected. I try to open IE again and I get a page cannot be displayed. I check my network connection and it looks fine. So I shut down and restart. After boot up I open IE and it comes up fine and I can surf around to a few other pages - then after like 5 min of surfing it stops working again. I called up my broadband provider and everything checked out on their end - they have offered to send out a tech but that will cost me and would rather try my luck on some of these forums first. Anyone have any idea whats going on?

Wow, thats crazy... so it worked temporarily and then fails? I am sure you tried just about everything, but have you tried a different nic? They are relatively inexpensive, i would try either a friends, a spare one sitting around, or go buy a really cheap one, to see if your linksys nic is the problem. If this doesnt help, try reinstalling the drivers (or maybe do this before you try a new nic)

If that doesnt work... i would try maybe a new pci slot? Maybe ( i dont see how it could be) it is a power fault with the slot... haha very unlikely. Just throwing suggestions out!

Goodluck

JonnyBlaze

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.