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I have a PC that is having some connection issues. It randomly drops pings. Not like 1 ping dropped here and there, but like every 5-15 minutes, it will drop 2-6 pings.

I have hooked it up to an entirely different wall socket, with a new Ethernet cord, and it is still experiencing the drops. So the issue seems to be with the laptop or Ethernet card itself.

It is a new laptop, only a few months old, and the Ethernet card is not heavily used (i.e. not massive torrent downloading or anything like that).

So my questions are.

Is there a good free program I can use to specifically test the Ethernet card?

Is there anything else anyone would suggest trying/testing?

Other than answers to the above 2 questions -- do you think it's pretty safe to assume the Ethernet adapter is starting to fail?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by airbourne

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A compact, practical checklist to isolate intermittent ping loss — expands on the thread contributions from and with tests you can run now and how to interpret the results.

Start by producing an unambiguous log of the drops (local gateway and an external host) so you can tell whether loss is local or upstream:

# Windows (continuous)
ping -t 8.8.8.8 > pinglog.txt

# Linux (timestamps and suppressed repeats)
ping -D -O 8.8.8.8 > pinglog.txt

If loss appears only to remote hosts, run a path analysis to see where packets are lost:
pathping documentation

Check interface counters and link properties next. On Windows start with:

netstat -e

and, if available, use PowerShell:

Get-NetAdapterStatistics -Name "Ethernet"

On Linux inspect link status and error counters with ethtool:
ethtool manual

Common, fixable causes to try before replacing hardware:

  • Disable adapter power-saving and any "allow the computer to turn off this device" option.
  • Turn off advanced offloads (Large Send Offload, Checksum Offload, Receive Side Scaling) in the adapter Advanced properties.
  • Verify speed/duplex negotiation on both ends; force identical settings briefly to test for mismatch.
  • Correlate ping timestamps with System/Event logs to catch periodic tasks or driver messages.

For a stress test, run an iperf session between two LAN endpoints to look for packet loss under load:
iperf documentation

If the problem persists after these steps, booting from a known-good live OS or swapping to a different NIC will quickly show whether the fault is OS/driver/configuration or the physical adapter. Log results (timestamps, error counters, and any syslog/Event Viewer entries) before contacting support or arranging a repair.

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There was an updated driver on the manufacturers website, that was not shown in win-update, so I installed that, and it hasn't had the problem again as of yet. So I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Member Avatar for airbourne

I have found that in most cases, it is better to use manufacturer drivers than use the windows update drivers provided by Microsoft.

Your problem also sounded like one I had on a PC with a built-in NIC. I was never able to resolve the problem, so I bought a $25 USB NIC and never had any more network problems. Since you fixed the problem, I would say nevermind on that. :)

If the manufacturer doesn't have a diagnostic utility, you could try something like wireshark, but I don't think that will give you what you are looking for. I guess I have never really troubleshot a NIC that was acting up, I simply replaced it since my job often values speed above all else when troubleshooting server hardware. We replace the "possible bad part" and then depending on the cost of the part, we may test it in a lab later.

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