Keep losing internet connection

Guys - can you help me troubleshoot. My desktop keeps losing internet connection. It's connected to the router by ethernet cable and randomly drops signal. The light still shows on the port at the back of the pc and the router still shows the little blue light. But no internet. Rebooting fixes it. Until the next time. At the same time the wired connection doesn't work, my other devices remain wireless connected.

Any help gratefully accepted, thanks

Ethernet cables are critical network devices, but not very robust. They can only survive being yanked or tripped over a limited number of times, or often not even once. Try a different cable.

Also, Ethernet ports on routers do go bad. Try a different port.

Next time you loose Internet connection, see if you can access your router's admin menu by entering its IP address in your browser address bar. If you can access your router's admin menu, the cable and port are probably okay. And something else changed - perhaps a firewall setting in your computer. So I would scan for malware, just to be sure all okay there.

Thanks Digerati. I replaced the ethernet cable, I'd already switched ports. Now I'll wait and see what happens. Cheers

ok. I lost internet tonight, I swapped in the  new ethernet cable and it made made no difference. Swapping ports didn't work either. And I couldn't access the routers admin either.

So I rebooted and everything worked fine, I had my internet back and I could log in to the routers admin.

Does that tell me anything?

And I couldn't access the routers admin either.

 

Understand that has nothing to do with the Internet. So it appears you have a local network problem.

Did you scan for malware?

Your computer's network device may be failing.

Thanks again, yes I have Bitdefender Total Security so that should be dealing with malware right? You think maybe the router is failing?

You think maybe the router is failing?

 

No. You have already stated your other devices work fine. And you changed router ports. So it is pointing to your computer. You may need to install another network interface.

ah ok I see, thanks. That came as part of the motherboard so I hope it can be detached and replaced

No, you won't be able to detach it. It is integrated into the motherboard. But you can easily add a NIC (network interface card) or a wireless adapter card or wireless USB adapter.

to be honest in my opinion it is more likely a software/driver/os issue than a hardware problem, in my experience when a ethernet nic fails, it fails for good and doesn't usually work, drop connection then work again on a reboot. not saying it definitely isn't a hardware problem just sounds less likely to me than a software issue.

sorry i'm no good at troubleshooting, especially windows connection problems, try running in safe mode or creating a new user and see if it stays connected, maybe set a static ip address and see if that fixes things.

usually such drops for a wired connection if the cables good i'd say are caused by a bad driver getting installed.

not sure what os you have but see if anything here helps :- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/10741/windows-10-fix-network-connection-issues#network-problems=windows-81&v1h=win81tab1&v2h=win7tab1&v3h=winvistatab1&v4h=winxptab1

What makes this odd is the problem is intermittent. That is not normally a software issue. But I sure cannot rule out software either. That's why I suggested a firewall or malware issue.

Next time it fails, check Device Manager for driver errors, but again, they are not normally intermittent.

Guys - thanks, it looks like this is fixed. I uninstalled Bitdefender and then installed it again. Since then everything works fine. Thanks for the help

I am glad you got it sorted and thanks for coming back and posting your solution!

always the same, the fix is easy just finding out what the fix is though is frustrating.

i'd be interested to know how you narrowed it down to bitdefender as the problem though, must admit an antivirus program would not have been near the top of my list as the cause of the problem so will have to try and remember that one.   

Terry1966, btw that's the last/only time England won the World Cup!!

Well I was going down the route of getting a wireless card when I remembered I'd  swapped from Kaspersky to Bitdefender some weeks prior. I googled around and found some posts about Kaspersky not fully uninstalling. So I made sure I'd done that and then spoke with a tech at Bitdefender who suggested reinstalling Bitdefender.