Intermittent Network Quandary

[Gavin Scott]

I know this is a bit dry for a Saturday night, subject wise, so my apologies in advance.

My XP pc was connected to the cable modem via the onboard network card on a piece of Cat5. I popped a second network card into the pc when I bought it a year ago and this runs off to my laptop on another length of Cat5. Laptop runs Vista.

Recently the laptop started losing the network/internet intermittently, and Vista's little "diagnose and fix the problem" routine did neither. Virgin support diagnosed that it was a network hardware fault. I didn't believe him, but bypassing the second network card certainly fixed it that night. I connected the cable modem by USB to the pc and used the onboard network port to connect the laptop. I've left it on the USB since.

However, tonight the same problem has returned - the laptop loses the network while the pc is fine. So far a couple of reboots has put it right but there must be something else going on here. I had to reboot the pc, modem and laptop before it did work, though.

Any clues?

[Sput]

Do you mean it loses the network in a 'the network cable is unplugged' sort of way? Or just suddenly won't ping back?

[Gavin Scott]

Do you mean it loses the network in a 'the network cable is unplugged' sort of way? Or just suddenly won't ping back?

I've experienced both and, peculiarly, also had an instance where the network folders were accessible but not the internet. The latter of the two options you mentioned is the most common.

[Sput]

Have you considered the state of the cable and the laptop's network socket?

[Gavin Scott]

Have you considered the state of the cable and the laptop's network socket?

I have. I had some made up by one of the tech guys in the work as he had some installation grade cable and a termination tool floating about. However, he's also done some BNC video cables for me and the plugs came off them after no time.

I'll hunt out some at work tomorrow at work and see if that helps.

Thanks, Sput.