PC keeps dropping out, have to keep rebooting router to recover

[ashG]

Hello, all!

This is a likely precursor to a second thread here shortly about replacing hardware.

My office PC (PC1 in the topology below) cannot seem to stay connected to the internet. As of about 3 or 4 months ago, I will come into my office and find the yellow triangle of frustration on the Windows 10 networking icon in the taskbar. My Media Hub sits above my monitor, so I just reach up and turn it off and back on again and everything is right as rain for a bit.

As my media hub router is an ASUS router, I've got the Connectivity Wizard on my PC. When the Yellow Triangle of Frustration appears, running the program identifies the router but tells me that I am on a different subnet mask and cannot log into the router. Bollocks! (Router and Media Hub remain on 255.255.255.0, PC changes to 255.255.0.0)

I Googled the issue and found instructions on how to keep the NIC from going to sleep, as that has helped some people with this issue. It has not helped me.

I have tried the following other remedies:

• Fresh, clean SSD install of Windows 10.
• Reset all routers to factory defaults, then changed minimal settings required for network functionality.
• Tried every possible combination of Router and Media Hub (AC68U [1] and TM-1900 [2], both on stock firmware; TPLink AC3150 v1 [3] only as living room router as it cannot be configured as a wireless hub device): [1] to [2], [2] to [1]. [3] to [1]. [3] to [2]. The issue reappeared at all variations of setup.
• I assigned permanent IP addresses based on MAC for the Media Hub and PC1.

Despite this testing and zeroing out of issues, the trouble still persists.

I appreciate any help you can provide. It only mildly annoys me to have to reboot the media hub router (although I'd rather not), but it drives my wife crazy to no end when she uses PC1 for graphics work. I look forward to your recommendations.

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My network topology is currently:
Living room - Cable modem (sb8200) - TP Link AC3150 v1 - wired connections to NAS, Fire TV, and Ooma

Wirelessly connected to:

Office - ASUS AC68U (Media Hub mode) - Wired connections to PC 1, PC2 (offline until my son is out of school in 2 weeks), Printer, repair workbench (currently unused)

Roaming - 2 Android phones - 4 Android tablets - 1 iPad Pro - 2 PC laptops - 1 Macbook Pro

 

[AndreiV]

If it is just that one PC , I would be looking at the network card first.

Is it an Intel NIC ? They are hopeless with Windows 10 , (well known issue) I have just thrown an Intel card in the bin , replacing it with a Realtek based unit.

 

[coxhaus]

Did you try hard coding the IP address and mask on the PC instead of DHCP? This would be a cheap fix.

 

[ashG]

Thanks for the help, all!

I tossed the TPLink in the trash. They wouldn't RMA, so I chucked it.

I unplugged the cable modem (including coax) and routers and left them powered down all night. The next morning I plugged the cable modem back in and let it power up completely. Factory reset and cleared the NVRAM on each router, installed the latest official firmware, and reset and cleared again. Set up the 68U in the living room as the primary router. Set up the TM-1900 in the office as the media hub. Used the Network Reset option in Windows 10 to clean the stack and get rid of any chuff.

So far, a few days in and all is still well. No more issues. Fingers are crossed...