Windows 10: Connection drops completely when trying to use the Internet

I was struggling with this same issue for nearly 2 months. When connected via an Ethernet cable, everything would be fine for hours on end. But if I played a Youtube video or even an embedded video on a news site, the computer would freeze the video after about 10 minutes. It would then switch to WiFi and struggle to keep an internet connection. I would then have to reboot or disable/enable the Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet. The ethernet connection would be restored but watching a video would again cause the same issue.

This evening, I called Motorola Tech Support as a last resort because my cable modem is SBG6580 Arris (1-877-466-8646). Time Warner Cable is my service provider. The tech support guy was brilliant. He asked me to go to the cable modem settings (typically 192.168.0.1) and read out the power values for the Downstream Bonded Channels. He said these should be between -8.0 dBmV and +8.0 dBmV. (They were). For the Upstream Bonded Channels, he said that the power values should be in the 30.0 dBmV to 50 dBmV range. (Again, they were). He assured me that these checks confirm that the issue is not with the cable provider but rather the way the laptop is managing the internet signal from the modem.

He suggested a simple fix: Disable WiFi. To do this, I right clicked on the Windows 10 Start button, went to Network Connections and disabled the WiFi by right clicking on the icon. His theory was that something was causing my laptop to switch to WiFi because it could. By disabling WiFi, we were forcing my laptop to hold on to the Ethernet connection.

And viola, it worked! He asked me to call him back if there was an issue but there wasn't. I ran a Youtube video for nearly 4 hours and the connection was perfect throughout. It still was when I stopped playing, signed up to this forum and posted this response.

Good luck!