LAN Problem(Driver?)

[Dewmeister]

For the last two months or so, I have endured a bizarre (and annoying) problem with my Network Connections.

The problem occurs completely randomly, four or five times a day. (not impacted at all by which programs are running, or even whether or not I'm using the computer).

When it happens, My internet connection instantly disappears(very inconvenient in a game). This is followed by heavy CPU utilization by the kernel. That is to say, when I look at the performance tab in windows task manager, the cpu usage floats around 50% or 80%(the level varies from time to time, but it is pretty much constant once the problem starts up) and when I have 'show kernel times' enabled, almost all of the usage is displayed in red.

At this point I can't even ping the gateway, but in Network Connections, nothing in my LAN Port status is out of the ordinary. Windows thinks that it has a connection.

Disabling and reenabling the LAN Port in Network Connections fixes the problem immediately. (but of course, will not prevent the problem from reocurring)

Reinstalling drivers did not solve anything.

Reinstalling windows seemed to fix the problem, but it returned in a week or so.
(had Windows XP Home, now using Windows XP Pro).

Motherboard: Asus CROSSHAIR


Any ideas?? Any kind of diagnostic I can run(or even keep running in the background to record what the computer is trying to do exactly when the internet fails?)?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[annaconda]

Check you event viewer.

 

[Dewmeister]

It happened again sometime in the last hour or so.

There are no events in the timeframe during which the problem would have occurred.

HOWEVER, when I disabled/reenabled the network adapter, the following event occurred:
Type: Warning
Source: Tcpip
Event ID: 4226
Description: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.


This sounds very promising, but I'm not really sure what to get out of it; The only internet app I had running was Steam, and it was just sitting there. There shouldn't be anything trying to make lots of simultaneous connections. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Ryan