Internet keeps dropping out

[Kelthammer]

@CJM1231 @jamesn123 

If you are using the buildings physical ethernet cabling to connect to the router; the last thing to check would be auto-negotiate speed on your PC.

Can you access the ethernet setting for the PC network interface and ensure that auto negotiate is turned off, this might be done by selecting a set speed e.g. 100MBps.

The auto-negotiate protocol is supposed to be an industry standard by different manufactures have interpretted the spec differently which can also cause drop outs while the router/PC re-negotiates. Given the WAN speed is likely to be less than 100MBps being fast (1GBps) between the PC and router doesn't gain you anything.

[CJM1231]

@Kelthammer I dont remember the exact model for the TP Link devices but they arent being used anyway, i will check when i can though. As for the speed setting you mentioned i changed this a few days ago as you recommend. It was one of the main fixes i researched about but it didnt seem to work on its own. 

For now it has been working good all day (from what i am told) i will check on it over the weekend and give any updates if i run into any more problems.

Thanks for the help!

[Kelthammer]

@CJM1231 @jamesn123 

No problem, glad its worked out

[CJM1231]

@Kelthammer @jamesn123 

Hi Again, the fix did not las long at all. it was okay thursday and friday but yesterday and today has been so bad. Basically a disconnect every 5 mins all day on all devices in the house. I have reset everything again and no fix. I did however run the ethernet troubleshooter and got this error:

It says i need to connect my ISP for this error. What is my best nect action?

[Kelthammer]

@CJM1231 @jamesn123 

Upfront apologies for this long post and techy content.

Ok we've done too many changes; need to step back and look at the problem from outside and move in once we've done some testing. The windows ethernet checker, the Sky broadband checker and the Netflix Fast service all have one thing in common, they only do spot checks and 99.99% of the time can't see the issues you are having.

I would recommend trying a continuous test to your WAN/LAN. A site I have used is ThinkBroadBand (a free service). Can you go to ThinkBroadband  and under the tools tab select Broadband Quality Monitoring click on the "Create a new monitor" link, this will let you set up an external monitor.

The site explains how it monitors the test addresses, but in short it pings the designated addresses every 10 Seconds with a small packet and then puts up the results in a graph. Here's one I did last month:

To get a good idea of the performance between your router and Think BB; you'll need to leave it running for some time. If you are having issues still, a couple of hours should do; but the ThinkBroadband display window is 24 hours so the longer you can leave it running the better the view.

The best way to identify LAN from WAN issues would be to setup two monitors; one looking at the Sky routers WAN address and if you can something on the inside of your LAN.

From your Sky router pages you can identify the WAN connection IP addresses; there should be two, an IPV4 94.x.x.x and an IPV6 2a02:c7c:8426::::.

You need real addresses; any address in the ranges 10.x.x.x/192.168.x.x/172.16.x.x or fe80::::::(IPv6 Link Local) are no use to the ThinkBB Monitor as those addresses do not route over the internet

If you have a device (e.g. games console) that you can leave running and it uses a real address (e.g. the XBoX uses a real IPV6 address) you can use that for the monitors target address. As it sits inside you local area network it can be used with the WAN monitor to identify issues caused by the LAN/WiFi in your building.

Sorry but this is going to take sometime to get to identifying where your issues are. If you can put together a drawing showing how you are connecting to the router; and detail any other devices that sit directly between you and the router; e.g. active network switches, WiFi repeaters or anything including TP Link devices which use the building electrical wiring to connect the LAN side.

Hope this is helping 

regards

Kelthammer