Hi, I just installed Win7 Ultimate 64bit a couple of days ago and since then I am experiencing problems with my router. I sometimes lose the network, both wired and wireless access, and I have to manually restart the router to get it to work again. I didn't have these problems when running WinXP on my computer so the only conclusion I can draw is that Win7 is doing something my router doesn't like. I suspect it might have something to do with IPv6 so I have disabled that and the Link-Layer Topology things on my network adapter. I also updated the driver to the latest I could find on Realteks website. But if anyone has any other suggestions I would be glad to hear them. The router is a Netgear WGU624. My network card is a Realtek RTL8111B/RTL8168B Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express card. Driver version is 7.5.730.2009 from Realtek.

Have you checked Netgear's website for updated firmware for your router? I am also having issues with Windows 7 and not being able to connect to the Internet - I am using a Netgear DGN2000 and there was new firmware available for it.Not sure if that will fix the issue, but it's something to try.

You may temporary bypass the router and check if the issue occurs. Additionally, you can run ipconfig/all when the issue occurs. If there is no Default Gateway, DHCP Server and DNS server are None, the most cause is the router. As YlwLabMom indicates that the Netgear routers may be not compatible, you may need to upgrade the firmware.Arthur Xie - MSFT

Yes it is probably a fault in the router causing this and I am unfortunately running the latest firmware on it. Netgear are not the greatest when it comes to supporting their products. I guess they consider my router too old because there haven't been an update for years. One options is of course buying a new router and hoping that one will work. But how do I know which routers work with Win7? Another one would be to try and find out what is causing this and if possible disable it in Windows if it isn't something vital. The third, and easiest solution would of course be to reinstall WinXP. Nothing wrong with that OS, but I kinda like Win7 so I rather not do that. What do you know. Just as I sat here writing this I get the "no network access" down in the systray. Doing "ipconfig /all" shows the interface and it is looking good. Ip address, dhcp address, default gateway and dns servers are all there. But I know that I have to restart the router to get it to work again. Because on my old laptop, which is the only other computer on the network, I am still running WinXP and that one has lost the network as well. Very annoying!

I had the same problem, old linksys router, latest firmware 3 years old or so. Upgraded to a current model Dlink and it looks like the problem was resolved. The dlink I purchased was 'certified to work with vista' so I assumed that would carry over to win7. Had no problems with the router under xp, not sure what win7 was doing to it to have it constantly crashing/cycling.