This is a real mystery that has me stumped. We've got some windows 8.1 laptops here that were working fine at first but have stopped getting an IP address on their LAN connections.

We've tried all the usual stuff - remove the NIC in device manager and rediscover it, updated drivers and BIOS, disabled the Kaspersky AV software and so on and so forth. Even with a static address in the right subnet it couldn't ping anything else, and we've ruled out cabling and switch ports as they are known good and work fine with other machines. Safe mode with networking makes no difference.

We initially suspected a hardware fault which I've seen before with the same symptoms (these were bought as part of a batch) so got parts replaced under warranty which fixed it on two PCs but it's now happened on another 8.1 machine bought separately (though same model - a Dell E5530) and has reoccured on one of them.

I've just popped a new HD in and done a clean install of windows which is working fine so that rules out hardware, but clearly I need to get to the bottom of it and can't reinstall the OS each time it happens.

Has anyone seen this before?

It could be something wrong with the network switch which the computer is connected.

Have you rebooted the network switch?

Hi,

Could you give us the ipconfig /all information in your problematic computer?

You need check if the Autoconfiguration is enabled.

Also having this issue

reinstalled nic

proved its not the network as same setup works fine on a machine running 7 and a machine running linux, also live booted the machine in question with a linux distro proving that it is not the computer/switch or any of the hardware at fault, reset the ip stack, assigned manual ip etc etc, uninstalled norton, nothing works, since its only windows 8.1 that has this issue with the hardware it muct be the inferior o/s.

Lots of people share the same issue with windows 8.1. Although other PC's with Windows 8, 7 and XP didn't report this issue.

As a temporary solution i wrote a batch with "ipconfig /release" and "ipconfig /renew" in it. People using Skype for example lose their connections when the system is not in use for a while (even when all settings were checked like energy settings, NIC settings etc.), so they don't receive any calls. Very annoying.

I am almost certain that there must be a compatibility issue with Windows 8.1 and switches / routers on the network.

• Proposed as answer by hojat.rostami 20 hours 44 minutes ago