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Nightly disconnection issues

I had this problem earlier last night and it started up again, which has something to do when the DHCP renew/release occurs every night. All of a sudden, it just started starting in September after 6 months of solid connections but I don't know what to do to restore stability to this Windows 7 machine (upgraded in Sept from WinXP, had NO problems). Only the ethernet connections appear to suffer from this and the wireless connections are unaffected.

It always happens in the evening hours, sometimes more than once. I checked the Coax settings on the Actiontec MI424WR's settings and showed a renewal in less than 2 hours and likely I will drop again tonight....I thought FIOS was supposed to be static?

Router replacement didn't help, hard restarting to factory settings didn't help but switching to the free ethernet slot helped for a few weeks before it started happening again a few nights ago. The TVs are also unaffected so this may be isolated to ethernet connections only.

So doing anything to restore the connection stability would be greatly appreciated.

Windows 7 Home Premium

FIOS 30/30 & TV

Actiontec MI424WR router

Comments

Anti-Phish1

@Glaice wrote:
Only the ethernet connections appear to suffer from this and the wireless connections are unaffected.
Early models of the Actiontec (especially rev. A) had problems with the ethernet switch ports failing.
If a router replacement didn;t help, then that probably not your problem.
@Glaice wrote:
I checked the Coax settings on the Actiontec MI424WR's settings and showed a renewal in less than 2 hours.
There are two sets of DHCP settings in the Actiontec. One set for the WAN and another set for the LAN.
The WAN DHCP lease interval is two hours. It renews automatically every hour, so that it never has less than 60 minutes remaining. Consequently, the WAN DHCP lease will not expire unless you turn your router off for more than two hours.
LAN DHCP leases default to 24 hours.
It's not clear from your post which DHCP lease you're having a problem with, if that is indeed your problem.
@Glaice wrote:
I thought FIOS was supposed to be static?
No, residential accounts are dynamic. Static WAN IP addresses are only available on a business account.

Glaice

I know I sure don't get knocked offline after the WAN lease is renewed, so it has to be the LAN since the date under Network Connection Details under LAN Status in the lower right in Windows. When I 'fix' the problem with Troubleshoot Problems, it says something about the default gateway not available so that might also be something.

I will see if maxing out the LAN lease time (43200 minutes, or 1 month) might help.

Hubrisnxs

sounds like a LAN lease issue. You can try to update your NIC firmware, or you should just disable apipa in windows

Glaice

I will see if this helps me with this issue.

Hubrisnxs

is it possible that it's just a bad ethernet cable? do you have another one to test with?

Glaice

I did switch the ethernet cable to my desktop with a brand new one, it didn't help at all.

Guuuuah! Dropped again minutes ago and it was nowhere the LAN lease expiration time...

Oh! Does this tidbit help since network troubleshooting says something about "Default gateway not available" when I restore connectivity from the drop? How can it not be available if the router IP is the gateway?

Anti-Phish1

Is this happening from more than one PC?

At this point, you seem to have ruled out the router and the ethernet cable (both have been replaced).

That leaves only the NIC and the OS unless this is happening from more than one PC.

"Default gateway not available" means that your PC can't reach 192.168.1.1 or that it is not getting responses to packets such as DNS queries which are sent to the default gateway IP address.

Glaice

If I remember, it did happen with a PC upstairs using Windows XP, which was using ethernet at the time, so I really didn't mess with anything network related on Windows 7 since installation in September. This only really happens in the evening hours, leaving me stable connectivity all day.

It just hurts to deal with this nonsense almost every night, even bringing me close to raging when occurring multiple times a night.

Here is an IPCONFIG /ALL if that might help..

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Glaice-desktop

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : home

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : home

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-23-54-0A-48-9F

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::54e9:5489:98f:bc51%11(Preferred)

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.3(Preferred)

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, December 05, 2010 12:42:24 AM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Monday, December 06, 2010 10:12:22 AM

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 234890068

DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-13-F7-69-EA-00-23-54-0A-48-9F

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

68.237.161.12

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.home:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : home

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 9:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:4137:9e76:38b8:723:9f10:e759(Preferred)

Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::38b8:723:9f10:e759%13(Preferred)

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : ::

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Also, I will see if Wireshark will pick up anything interesting with the packets when I get the drops later this evening and post them in text friendly if possible.

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