Onboard ethernet ports on Maximus Formula dropping...

[robplumm]

Wondering if anyone's had this issue? I've updated the drivers for it, but it keeps randomly dropping the connection. Sometimes it will run for several hours, sometimes 30mins. I can ping out to websites via the cmd prompt, but no pages will load. It shows internet connection on the indicator in the lower right corner, but no pages load, nothing downloads.

It's apparently fairly common with the Marvell Yukon, but no where have I have a resolution for it...so hoping someone here might have an idea.

In the meantime I've ordered a new NIC to drop in a PCI slot, but that won't be here til Tuesday.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Sure it isn't your Internet connection? Internet connection is usually far more problematical than intranet.

 

[robplumm]

Yeah...still have phone when it happens (use voip) and it gets "fixed" when I restart the computer. And like I said...I can still ping through the cmd prompt, so it seems the internet connection is still there...but for some reason the Marvell/Yukon port won't let me hit anything with firefox.

Doesn't fix with ipconfig /release or /renew either...only restart of the system.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Try Internet Explorer or Opera?

Tried Windows Update?

If ping works, the connection is there and good. The problem is mostly software/setting related.

 

[robplumm]

IE will load...but do so very, very slowly. And it drops pics (get the beautiful red x instead). Just ran windows update for all the latest greatest vista fixes.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Check your network activity via ctrl+alt+del (Network tab) while not browsing, updating, etc. What percentage is it at? What's your internet connection speed supposed to be?

Try a bandwidth test via Speed Test.


Did Windows Update download updates rather quickly?

 

[robplumm]

It's at 0% when not doing anything with a webpage, etc.


And yes...it dl'd the updates quickly (I have it set to let me choose any before it gets them). We're supposed to be in the 6mb range...apparently we're a bit over that right now.

*shrug* I've read elsewhere of the Marvell/Yukon 88E8056 having issues, but no one ever had a resolution (including Marvell).

If you can think of any settings to tweak, I'm game...I've looked through everything I could think of, not that my depth of knowledge is very deep here.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I've had similar problems and it is usually the router to blame. That is, the router is doing a bad job at prioritizing traffic. Seeing how you are using VOIP, perhaps packets that contain HTML are getting their priority reduced next to nothing. That explains why updates would be fast but browsing the Internet would be slow. Have you tried multiple websites just to make sure one of the sites isn't slow?

 

[robplumm]

I'm always on multiple websites The ones that run slow are ones that I expect to. When it "dies" it doesn't matter which website I'm looking at, it just won't load any. I don't think I've given the vonage router a good hard reset in a while, I'll throw one at it and see what happens. But so far it's been running for a couple hours with no issues (of course...I asked a question about it...why would it die now?)

 

[FordGT90Concept]

By any chance, does it happen when someone is using a phone?

 

[robplumm]

No...starting to think it's related to firefox. I keep getting a hanging process with firefox as well. Only way to clear it is a restart.

 

[Yin]

I don't see how you can jump to that conclusion.....
Your blaming your mb's nic...
When it is most likely to be something else....

 

[Mussels]

sounds more like a DNS issue, or a software problem (torrents uploading, or some other nasty)

anyway, heres an idea. Go grab a bootable CD ISO for a linux install, and see if that has the same issue. If it does, its hardware - if it doesnt, its your windows install/software.

another alternative is just a spare network card/wireless, but you may not have those available.

 

[robplumm]

Appears to be ZoneAlarm related with Firefox3. Apparently they don't like each other too much. I got rid of ZoneAlarm and no more freezes or hanging firefox processes.

Intriguing.