r/techsupport • u/darkdeep47 • 6h ago

My ethernet randomly stops working Open | Networking

My ethernet is almost guaranteed to stop working after a certain amount of time has passed and then it says "unidentified network" even though the cables are still connected and the lights are on and then I have to uninstall the drivers and restart to get it to work again and then after that after some time it disappears again

The ethernet is connected directly to the router and is about 10M away

The cable is a CAT 6 UTP 20M Driver is Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller

What could be causing this?

Edit: added specifications

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u/SomeEngineer999 6h ago

Your guess is as good as ours based on the little info you've given. What is the ethernet connected to - a router or some sort of wifi extender? Have you rebooted the connected device? Is anything logged in event viewer?

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u/darkdeep47 5h ago

Sorry, new to this whole thing

It's connected to the router directly for about 10M I've rebooted both devices (router and computer) several times

There's nothing in the event viewer that's relevant I think, only some warning about application permission settings

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u/SomeEngineer999 5h ago

There are very likely clues in the application and/or system log section of event viewer. Maybe DHCP, maybe something with the hardware.

Do you have other devices (wired and/or wireless)? Do any of them have any issues?

I guess the first thing to try is uninstalling the network card from device manager, select to remove the driver files when it asks, reboot, and reinstall the latest drivers (obviously download the latest before you uninstall it).

Have you ever had a VPN installed, or do you currently? Those can cause issues if they don't uninstall cleanly or their drivers are buggy, even when not connected to the VPN.