USB to Ethernet adapter keeps dropping connection to home network

[tboooe]

Hello, I have a dual PC system running JRMC or Minimserver DLNA servers and Jplay. I use the primary network port to connect my control and audio pcs. To connect the control PC to my wireless router I use a USB to Ethernet adapter. Everything works fine except sometimes the connection my home network is dropped by the USB adapter. When this happens I can no longer use my control point software to access the DLNA server and Jplay renderer. Quickly unplugging and plugging the USB adapter back in restores the connection. This happens once every few days and only when I am not listening the music.

 

Anyone have any idea why this is happening? It seems random and not associated with anything I am doing.

 

Thank you.

[scan80269]

Are you using a "USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet" adapter? Which Windows OS is the PC with the adapter plugged in running? Did you unplug the adapter from the PC or unplug the Ethernet cable from the adapter? Did you see a "yellow bang" on the adapter device in Device Manager when the network connection is broken?

 

I just picked up one of these USB3-to-GbE adapters from a local computer store. It carries an ASIX AX88179 bridge chip inside, which is apparently very common. Windows 7/8/8.1 may come with a built-in ("inbox") driver for this device, but the driver revision may not be up-to-date. The ASIX website has the latest WHQL-certified driver. Installing the latest driver is easy and worth a try.

 

Another thing to consider would be to disable "Energy Efficient Ethernet" setting for the adapter. It is possible for a flawed implementation of EEE (e.g. device driver or HW bug) to result in occasional Ethernet connection breaks.

 

You will likely need to experiment a little to see what the disconnection follows.

 

An alternative would be to use a gigabit Ethernet add-on card (with PCIe interface) instead of the one you have that works through USB.

[tboooe]

Thank you for the reply. Yes I am using Usb 3 to Gigabit adapter using the same chip you mentioned. I am using it on a PC running Server Essentials R2. To restore my network connection I have to unplug the adapter from the PC. And yes, when the connection drops I see the yellow notification in Windows. Finally, I have installed the latest driver.

[scan80269]

Even the brand of USB 3.0 host controller in the PC may matter. I've learned the hard way that USB3 host controllers are not all born equal. For example, a discovery I made at work last year pointed fingers at a Renesas USB3 host controller (specifically uPD720202). This chip has a USB 3.0 protocol bug, related to USB3 power management, that occurs rarely but was nevertheless caught using customized USB3 protocol verification tools. There is no fix or workaround for this bug (as it is frozen into silicon), other than sidestepping it by deliberately disabling USB3 power management. As far as I can tell, this bug is specific to Renesas USB3 controllers (though I don't know how many chip generations are affected), so should not occur with other USB3 controllers such as from Intel.

 

If your USB3-to-GbE is not connected to a Renesas USB3 host controller in your PC, then your problem is caused by something else. Realtek has a RTL8153 chip that is a competitor to the ASIX AX88179, but it can be hard to tell before purchase which brand/model USB3-to-GbE adapter carries the Realtek chip instead of the ASIX.

[jabbr]

Your network may be overly complicated -- I'd get rid of that USB --> Ethernet connection ASAP!

 

Why not get a small hub that you can connect all your wired Ethernet machines to -- including your PCs? Connect your wireless router to this. At home I also use a standalone router/firewall between my network and the cable modem. This router serves everyone DHCP.

 

The point is that direct PC to PC Ethernet connections are not the best design ... And then you need to deal with multi homed routing etc which just makes everything much more complicated.