up vote 0 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I have a Windows 7 64-bit machine that is losing up to 20% of IP packets on both adapters - wireless & LAN. Browser traffic appears to be affected the most, but it is happening to all protocols.

All other computers on the network are functioning fine.

If I ping from my faulty machine to any machine on the LAN (wired or wirelessly), including the router/gateway and internet sites, I get up to 20% packet loss.

If I do the following commands:

  • ipconfig /release
  • ipconfig /renew

then I sometimes get my network performance back for a matter of a few seconds to less than a couple of minutes.

Rebooting also works for a short period of time.

This problem has been occurring for a couple of months and is getting worse. The computer used to work just fine.

I updated the wireless adapter firmware the other day with no effect.

Does anyone know what is happening?

link|improve this question
Try debug with Wireshark. Run capture on interface and ping gateway. – alvosu Feb 3 '11 at 9:57
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

I have ran accross this kind of issue before, the first thing to figure out is if the problem is being caused by a Hardware issue or by a Software issue. My method of choice for this test is to run a copy of Ubuntu Live from the CD (Where it loads Linux to a RAM Disk) and test the ability to browse the internet and ping other IP's.

(Obviously, Ubuntu is just my choice - you could run any Live CD version of linux or even WinPE if you have the right image).

If the problem persists it's a hardware issue.

If the problem doesn't occur under Ubunutu then its a Windows issue and my advice would be to nuke the OS from orbit and redeploy the system.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

liveCD is a great test, but the problem might be a bug in the windows driver or the NIC's firmware, so make sure these are up to date. The next step is inserting a NIC with different chipset, before you try nuke & pave :-)

link|improve this answer
Thanks for your answer. I believe my drivers and firmware are up-to-date. I'm using a laptop so I can't readily add a new NIC, but in any case it's happening on both my wireless and LAN adapters so shouldn't that rule out faulty hardware specific to the NIC? – Enigmativity Feb 4 '11 at 1:17
Correct, but it doesn't rule out other hardware/driver trouble. What results do you get with a liveCD? – UnisoftDesign Feb 4 '11 at 17:29
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.