Windows 10: Problems reconnecting Ethernet after waking from PC sleep

In mid-March, I bought a new custom-built desktop computer running Windows 10 that includes a motherboard with a RealTek PCIe GBE family network controller, which worked perfectly until several days ago.

A couple of weeks back, I subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud and installed Illustrator CC on my machine. I have no idea whether this has anything to do with my problem, but the timing is curious, and it's the only significant change I've made to my system recently.

After I installed Illustrator, my computer stopped going to sleep on its own. (It was set to go to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity.) This situation persisted for several days.

One morning I woke up and found that my computer had gone to sleep overnight. However, upon waking it up, I had a new problem: I had no access to my networked external hard drive or to most websites. A few worked (Google, Xfinity), but most gave me errors. Troubleshooting revealed that my IPv6 connection was fine, but I had no IPv4 connection. My network controller was permanently stuck on "Identifying."

After trying a dozen different suggestions from tech Q&A boards around the web, I managed to stabilize my Internet connection by changing the IPv4 settings on my network controller from "Obtain an IP address automatically"/"Obtain DNS server address automatically" to fixed IP addresses. Unfortunately, this did nothing for my connection to my external hard drive, which I previously had mapped to P:. I still lose connection to that drive upon waking from sleep, and while I can access it after restarting my computer, the mapping to P: vanishes every time.

I've been assuming up to this point that the problem was with my network controller or its driver. But now I'm wondering whether the problem is with Windows 10 itself. That's because this morning was the second time my computer shut down on its own instead of going to sleep. I also got a "Driver state power failure" blue screen message on a couple of my reboots while I was trying to sort the Internet problem out, before I changed my IPv4 settings. Have there been any Windows 10 updates recently that might be causing this problem?

:)

 

wake from sleep issue in windows 10

Hi,

Thank you for posting your reply. Apologize for the delay in response.

I suggest you to check which devices are configured to wake up the computer from sleep by following the steps below:

• Right click on Start icon and select Command Prompt (Admin).
• Type the command line below:

Powercfg /devicequery wake_armed

3. Check if the devices (Keyboard, Mouse, Ethernet cable) are listed.

If the system is not going to sleep and going to Hybernate, the only option to wake up is to press the Power button.

Hope the information is helpful.

 

Troubleshooting PCs spontaneously waking from sleep

I've also battled with sleep/wake issues over the years, and from experience have learned that trying to find, or rationalise, the root cause is a waste of time. All you need is `powercfg`.

`powercfg -devicequery wake_armed` from an Administrator PowerShell window/Command Prompt will give you a list of all devices that can possibly wake the PC. This command is interesting because very often, it will show devices that you'd never expect being able to wake your computer. I think in one instance I had the chipset device listed!

`powercfg -devicedisablewake "device_name_from_device_query"`will prevent said device from ever waking the computer. This command is 100% the only thing I have found that will resolve sleep/wake problems. Updating drivers, unplugging peripherals, switching to a cleaner power supply (UPS), changing ethernet cables... none of those have helped, yet`powercfg -devicedisablewake` has done the trick.

Note that occasionally, devices you have disabled wake for may start waking up the PC again - this happens if you plug a USB device into a different port, or occasionally when drivers are updated, because Windows sees it as a new device. In that case rerun `powercfg` to find and disable that device again.

If this does not resolve your wake issues, I would start looking at power fluctuations.

 

slow Internet reconnect after Win10 wakes from sleep


My new Asus Win10 machine with a solid-state hard drive wakes up from sleep refreshingly quickly -- just a couple of seconds. But it takes between 15 and 40 seconds before the Internet connection is re-established. Once the connection is re-established, it works fine. But that delay is annoying. Can I do something to speed up the reconnection?

I don't know where the delay is coming from. My NIC is plugged directly into my Comcast cable modem -- no other routers or the like involved. The NIC on the machine claims to be an "Intel Ethernet Connection (2) 1219-V", running driver version 12.13.17.4, which is claimed to be the current version. The "Power Management" tab in Device Manager for the NIC lists three power-saver options, all of which are enabled (that is, the boxes are checked):

Respond to ARP requests without waking system
Respond to NS requests without waking system
Energy Efficient Ethernet

(I am attaching a PNG of the Power Management tab.) These options suggest that the NIC should be able to keep the Internet connection alive, even during sleep. So I don't know why I am experiencing a delay in re-establishing the connection.

Any ideas?
Lyle