K
KeithAmmann
In mid-March, I bought a new custom-built desktop computer running Windows 10 that includes a motherboard with a RealTek PCIe GBE family network controller, which worked perfectly until several days ago.
A couple of weeks back, I subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud and installed Illustrator CC on my machine. I have no idea whether this has anything to do with my problem, but the timing is curious, and it's the only significant change I've made to my system recently.
After I installed Illustrator, my computer stopped going to sleep on its own. (It was set to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity.) This situation persisted for several days.
One morning I woke up and found that my computer had gone to sleep overnight. However, upon waking it up, I had a new problem: I had no access to my networked external hard drive or to most websites. A few worked (Google, Xfinity), but most gave me errors. Troubleshooting revealed that my IPv6 connection was fine, but I had no IPv4 connection. My network controller was permanently stuck on "Identifying."
After trying a dozen different suggestions from tech Q&A boards around the web, I managed to stabilize my Internet connection by changing the IPv4 settings on my network controller from "Obtain an IP address automatically"/"Obtain DNS server address automatically" to fixed IP addresses. Unfortunately, this did nothing for my connection to my external hard drive, which I previously had mapped to P:. I still lose connection to that drive upon waking from sleep, and while I can access it after restarting my computer, the mapping to P: vanishes every time.
I've been assuming up to this point that the problem was with my network controller or its driver. But now I'm wondering whether the problem is with Windows 10 itself. That's because this morning was the second time my computer shut down on its own instead of going to sleep. I also got a "Driver state power failure" blue screen message on a couple of my reboots while I was trying to sort the Internet problem out, before I changed my IPv4 settings. Have there been any Windows 10 updates recently that might be causing this problem?
Continue reading...
A couple of weeks back, I subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud and installed Illustrator CC on my machine. I have no idea whether this has anything to do with my problem, but the timing is curious, and it's the only significant change I've made to my system recently.
After I installed Illustrator, my computer stopped going to sleep on its own. (It was set to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity.) This situation persisted for several days.
One morning I woke up and found that my computer had gone to sleep overnight. However, upon waking it up, I had a new problem: I had no access to my networked external hard drive or to most websites. A few worked (Google, Xfinity), but most gave me errors. Troubleshooting revealed that my IPv6 connection was fine, but I had no IPv4 connection. My network controller was permanently stuck on "Identifying."
After trying a dozen different suggestions from tech Q&A boards around the web, I managed to stabilize my Internet connection by changing the IPv4 settings on my network controller from "Obtain an IP address automatically"/"Obtain DNS server address automatically" to fixed IP addresses. Unfortunately, this did nothing for my connection to my external hard drive, which I previously had mapped to P:. I still lose connection to that drive upon waking from sleep, and while I can access it after restarting my computer, the mapping to P: vanishes every time.
I've been assuming up to this point that the problem was with my network controller or its driver. But now I'm wondering whether the problem is with Windows 10 itself. That's because this morning was the second time my computer shut down on its own instead of going to sleep. I also got a "Driver state power failure" blue screen message on a couple of my reboots while I was trying to sort the Internet problem out, before I changed my IPv4 settings. Have there been any Windows 10 updates recently that might be causing this problem?
Continue reading...