Problem with Network Connection Failure

[Bhagwandas]

I have a strange difficulty facing when i try to connect my computer to internet. I have a built in NIC card on my motherboard and the computer is about a year and a half ago old. and I am facing problems with connecting to a server that one of my programs connects to. The connection stays for 3-5 minutes at a time and then server drops.

Please provide some help regarding this

[Milton.J]

From the way you are explaining things to me, it sounds like you are connecting to your internet connection through a wireless router and the computer that keeps losing the signal is not really that far away from the router that this should happen. If this is not a wireless connection and this is happening then the cable guy should have been able to tell pretty quick by installing a new network card, whether or not the problem was hardware related or not. My guess is your computer first of all needs a good spyware/malware and possible virus scan done. I say possible virus because it is the spyware/malware issues now a days that cause more problems and with viruses you pretty much know right away due to your antivirus program detecting it. I suggest you visit my website at and read my TIPS page on OPTIMIZING your computer. Then go to the SOFTWARE/SUPPORT page and download/install all the programs from the pink section as they will help with the cleaning/removal of the spyware components that may be interferring with your internet connection, basically flooding the network connection to the point that it doesn't work anymore.

If you have a wireless network card then yes, your Network card may need replacing but if it is getting a signal one time and then loses it, that would most likely be something else.

[Spyrus]

if this is a wireless connection and you find it almost exactly 5 or 10 minutes... then you may need to 'simply' select or de-selecct a checkbox in the SYSTEM DEVICE MANAGER. (right click on MY COMPUTER and select PROPERTIES and then HARDWARE/DEVICE MANAGER) now click on the +sign next to your network adapters and you should see your wireless network card. Double click on this to show the properties and you will see 'power management' features which you should TURN OFF so that it does NOT have the ability to turn off the power of the device!.. Save it and restart your computer. That would ultimately be the problem if it were so easy.. but the spyware stuff should be a good tip as I see so many problems solved by a good cleaning

[Snake08]

I would suggest that you have 802.1x authentication enabled but no RADIUS server. The client re-authenticates every 10 minutes, fails, and disconnects. However, that was fixed in XP SP2 so that's improbable. Check the 802.1x settings anyway. If you're using WPA or WPA2 encryption, 802.1x must be enabled. Incidentally, try running it without encryption for a while and see if the problem disappears. That won't solve the problem but might identify the culprit.

[Zachary]

The "LAN connection" to the desktop is via wireless only, then the only way that can happen is that your wireless router is acting weird. Any chance you have both an infrastructure connection to the access point and an ad-hoc connection to the desktop in the network setup?

Another possibility is that you have RIP or RIP2 running on the router or desktop, which might cause the default route to change as the connection goes up and down. Run:
Start -> Run -> cmd
route print and look at the line at the bottom for default gateway. See if it (or anything else) changes when the system goes down.