Windows 7 desktop keeps dropping internet connectivity via ethernet connection to Airport Extreme base station. All other Macs & PCs work fine
While it may sound similar to many others, this exact question hasn't been asked before. Thinking I was doing him a favor, I convinced my boss to upgrade his old Linksys wireless router with a new Airport Extreme base station. I have a Dell Inspiron 850 running Windows 7 that is connected to the ethernet port of the Airport Extreme base station (the desktop doesn't have a WiFi card) The WAN port of the Airport Extreme base station is connected to the DSL modem (which only has one in and one out port, so I cannot connect the desktop directly to it) The Dell desktop keeps losing its internet connectivity (even though Network and Sharing says that it is connected and not one Windows 7 troubleshooter seems incapable of troubleshooting anything), when left idle for more than an hour. For a while, refreshing the browser fixed it, but doesn't anymore. The 3 Mac laptops, the 1 Mac desktop, and the 1 Windows XP laptop are all perfectly happy and don't drop their internet connections, so it's not a problem with the Airport, it's a problem with Windows 7. I have upgraded the BIOS on the Dell Desktop I have upgraded the BIOS of the NIC card of the Dell Desktop I have changed the Networking Group from "Home" (which I found out REALLY means a pure Windows 7 network, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the physical location of whether this PC is in a house or an office building), to "Work" (which I found out REALLY means a network of mixed operating systems). I have done the command line ipconfig /all stuff. I've called the ISP, who says there aren't any special settings necessary. I've tried changing the Airport Extreme from its recommended Bridge Mode (which works for everyone), to all manner of other configurations, none of which work. I've pulled half of my hair out. My boss now wants to send back the Airport Extreme and buy a new Linksys. I can't say that I blame him, even though it's not the Airport's fault. Any ideas on how to fix this? I am now going to try and downgrade the firmware of the Airport in order to dumb it down for Windows 7 and am even going to resort to going into the registry (which is yet another suggestion by yet another frustrated user, since every user is valiantly attempting to solve this widespread problem). Simply buying him a Mac Mini would make this so much easier of course. If someone who works at Microsoft is moderating this forum, could you please get this problem patched and fixed once and for all instead of continuing to ignore it? This is why you're losing market share and customers. Thanks and apologies for the tone, but can you blame me? Christopher
June 24th, 2010 9:21pm

Hi, Please also try the following: 1. Update the NIC driver. 2. Boot the system to Safe Mode with networking and see if the issue persists. 3. If you have other external NIC, please plug it to this problematic computer and see if it works. 4. If possible, try another router as well. Hope this helps. Thanks. Nicholas Li - MSFT Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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June 30th, 2010 9:41am

I do not know if this will help since u r using Airport Extreme but u may try it: While fiddling around with everything possible to resolve this issue, I found that my BELKIN N1 router's DHCP Lease Time was set to 1/2 hour! This coincided with the loss of internet connection on my Laptop 9Win 7 Ultimate). I suspected that the loss was occurring at regular intervals but could not figure out why! Last night I reset the router to a 2-weeks lease time and since then (10 hours aleady) I have not lost the connection once! Seems Win 7 may have a problem refreshing(or polling) the DHCP or the IP address automatically! I hope this is the end of my delema and I hope this is helpful to others. Bless u all.
July 25th, 2010 2:01pm

The only solution i discovered was to use a wireless Usb adapter or card (I wouldn't know if a card would fix this problem because ive been using the usb
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January 21st, 2011 12:53pm

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