flaky ethernet connection

[Asp]

WinXP SP3

For several years I used a router with DD-WRT to connect to our home Wi-Fi, my PC connected to the router by ethernet.

And that was pretty stable. But the router died and I didn't have a usable one to hand to replace it with so I installed a TP-Link USB Wi-Fi dongle, That worked mostly OK, but sometimes just lost connection for no obvious reason, while the signal was strong with mobile devices. Maybe inactivity time out somewhere?

So I laid some cable and went to a direct ethernet connection to our main router which is connected to a fibre modem.

This should have been faster and more reliable, but has some issues.

Sometimes loading a web page was extremely, extremely slow, though not dead. But then I could do an Oookla Speedtest and get 50 MBps.

And checking email (using Eudora via POP) would keep timing out. i.e., not just a browser issue.

And if I rebooted into Mint,, speed was normal.

Back in XP, I found that if I just rebooted, usually speed and connectivity was normal the next time.

I suspected a loose connection, crawled around and reseated the plugs. No obvious changes,

So, not a hardware or cabling problem I am pretty sure.

When I had a bad connection, I noticed that the LAN icon on the toolbar had taken several seconds to appear after booting.

Any idea how to fix this, short of reboot and pray?

Could there be some TP-Link code screwing up the ethernet driver? Though I have had the drivers for that installed for years as well, but reinstalled recently.  

I just uninstalled it, though it's useful to have at hand in case home ethernet goes offline and I use my phone as a hotspot.

 

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 03:23 AM by Asp

[NotHereToPlayGames]

In Task Manager, are there any processes running over 80% or so during your slow connectivity?

[Asp]

16 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

In Task Manager, are there any processes running over 80% or so during your slow connectivity?

Well, today first boot had no connection. System was 99% idle. Rebooted and have normal speed.

Maybe it is somehow hardware after all, Tomorrow might try to boot up Linux first and see how that goes.

 

 

[user57]

to me to that sounds very weird, but when fixing a pc problem i often had someone putting it that way
this would be a case for a "being on the place" for a better meaning

the idea to use a cable is not a bad idea, but if that connection problems persists in that case it´s likely to be that device  

i would disable wlan in that router, just in case someone of your neighbors somehow can connect to your router

[Asp]

6 hours ago, user57 said:

the idea to use a cable is not a bad idea, but if that connection problems persists in that case it´s likely to be that device  

i would disable wlan in that router, just in case someone of your neighbors somehow can connect to your router

Thanks, but the idea of it being a cable issue is hard to reconcile with it being fixed by a reboot. Conceivably, the router has put the wired connection to sleep and doesn't wake it up correctly when XP pings it? But have never had such a problem before, with other routers and this PC over the years (it's about 11 years old).

Most of the house: laptops, phones, lights, cat feeder,.... uses wifi, so need that to be on. Pretty sure no neighbours are connecting. I check the router's webpage fairly often, especially while playing around with this problem, and see the list of connected devices.

And today booted first to Linux: full speed. Later rebooted to XP, and still full speed. Will do a cold boot to XP next time and see what happens.

So, still not seeing a pattern.

.