Anyone with Win7 RC and using a Realtek NIC port...please come in...

[Stiletto]

After two fresh installs, I've seen the updated Realtek Gigabit onboard NIC driver knock out my ability to connect to the internet. The first time, I went straight to a fresh install. The second time, I rolled back...with success. Anyone else had this happen? Pretty damned serious problem, IMO.

[Rattle]

dont use the w7 update

[oMek]

yea, dont use the windows update driver. go download the vista driver from realtek and use that. i did and had no problems on any of my 5 win7 installs.

[Joe Average]

Yah, I had it happen once or twice on two different machines with Realtek NICs. The default driver included with the installation media worked/works fine, but the one actually on Windows Update "broke" it, so I rolled it back to the default one, no issues. No reason to get the one from Realtek in my opinion - the one in the installation media is from Realtek and works without issues so...

Unless there's an actual problem with that default driver, I would say leave it alone and use it. If an updated one exists from Realtek directly that specifically addresses some issue(s), then sure, install it, but unless that's the case, leave it alone.

[Stiletto]

Yeah, I'm sticking with the default one. Seems to work just fine.

The real kicker was that I just got a new motherboard because my last one was having several issues. After getting that swapped out and reinstalled, I got to the first point of updating the NIC driver, only to have it stop working. Coincidentally, at the exact same time, Charter's internet started having hiccups. Suddenly, the NIC also didn't work on my dual booted XP setup. I thought the NIC on my brand new motherboard was dead. Charter, I hope you all die in a fire.

[bigdogchris]

After two fresh installs, I've seen the updated Realtek Gigabit onboard NIC driver knock out my ability to connect to the internet. The first time, I went straight to a fresh install. The second time, I rolled back...with success. Anyone else had this happen? Pretty damned serious problem, IMO.It does the exact same thing to me in both Vista & 7. I just hide that driver so it doesn't come up anymore in a search. There is no real reason to ever update Nic/Sound drivers etc because most of the time the newer drivers are just for adding support for different/newer models. Generally the only driver you should have to update after you install Vista/7 is your graphics driver simply because of the large amount of fixes from the point it was published till now. Hell in Vista I bench marked my system with the default drivers and with new chipset/sata(scsi) drivers and the system was a few FPS lower than with the Vista provided drivers. I said screw it after than, nothing was having problems so I just put new graphics drivers on and said spit on it.

[HerbieHightower]

I had a similar thing happen. Lost network access but it turned out that my connection had turned to Public instead of Home or Work.

[Imaulle]

I updated and had no issues :confused:

[dnottis]

Same here, just use the latest driver from Realtek's website.

Block W7 update from updating the driver. The driver on Windows update is from 2006.

[bigdogchris]

I updated and had no issues :confused:Did you use Windows Update though or the downloaded one from the website? We're talking about WU.

[criccio]

I use all the device driver updates from WU on my Win7 x64 installation and my Realtek NIC works fine...

http://www.hdimage.org/images/19ou34l6q90343fvri50_ntitled.png

[bigdogchris]

Your screen is blurry :(

[Imaulle]

yes I updated through windows update. zero issues

[criccio]

Your screen is blurry :(

What?

[bigdogchris]

What?Just looks like your refresh rate is to high, the screen is fuzzy/blurry to me. How that translate to a poor picture image, don't ask ;) 7 does that to me though, sets my default refresh rate to 75hrtz, I change it to 60hrtz and it's much more crisp. Maybe it's just poor quality image but for 32kb I think it would be better quality.

Here is mine. Not fuzzy.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a370/bigdogchris/nicdriver.png

And by the way, the driver you have installed is not the same one from Windows Update that we are talking about because you and I have the same driver installed and I still see the 'bad' one on Windows Update.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a370/bigdogchris/badrealteknicdriver.png

[Joe Average]

Font rendering, ClearType, whether it's VGA or DVI, the video card, the drivers, all that plays into what gets displayed on a screen. Refresh rate has absolutely nothing to do with picture clarity of a static image, especially a screenshot or framegrab - it'll be the same every time you do it.

I'd say he's using a different card with different drivers, with different ClearType settings, etc... it all relates.

[bigdogchris]

Font rendering, ClearType, whether it's VGA or DVI, the video card, the drivers, all that plays into what gets displayed on a screen. Refresh rate has absolutely nothing to do with picture clarity of a static image, especially a screenshot or framegrabThat's what the wink was for ... :rolleyes:

[Joe Average]

You're gettin' there, you're getting there... a few more decades, you'll make it, I just know it. :cool:

[Cyrilix]

I installed it and it was fine (from Windows Update).

Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20)

This is what it says I have right now. Oh, but I have an 8168C/8111C. Also, the board I'm running is the Asus P6T SE.

[Matthew Kane]

LOL...thats what happened to me yday...no net connection at all says I have connected to an unknown network and no net after that 70KB NIC gigabit network driver update. Just rollbacked and worked.