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Just a little Windows rant

Leo Voisine

Leo Voisine

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Location
East Freeetown, Massachusetts
rant on

Sooo - I bought a new computer.

I also bought and installed an ethernet card so I could obtain faster connection speeds so I could have faster upload and download speeds.
I shut off the wireless connection and I want to be only ethernet.

The new computer goes into sleep mode -- OK, so not a big deal

When computer wake up I have no internet or network at all - now that IS a big deal
I need to reboot in order to reset everything so I have connection again

I start online searching as to why it is happening and how to fix it.
Interesting that there are a LOT of postings about the very same issue - LOTS and LOTS of postings,

I tried one - nope
I tried another - nope
again
again

over and over

After wake up - no connection

Look for the suggested setting.
Nope it's not there

Online searching as to why the setting is not there and how to get it to display
Ohhh - I need to edit the REGISTRY ---- ? REALLY ????

I am not comfortable editing the registry!!!!!

So I do it anyway

This morning was my third registry edit just so I can get the setting to appear - so I can TRY to get the ethernet to be active after wake up.

So now to me - and I know I am slow --- it just seems like a basic thing.
I want my ethernet to be there after my lunch so I can resume creating my video on Cool Things, without needing to reboot the computer.

KNOCK - KNOCK - KNOCK --- HELLO - MICROSOFT ---- WE HAVE a PROBLEM

I have been reading posts online that were posted since 2018 and Microsoft doesn't know about it????????

All the registry edits are for settings that MICROSOFT has intentionally left out.

Am I the only one that wants to use ethernet rather than WIFI, because ethernet is faster?

OK - sorry

rant off
 
That does sound frustrating. Have you contacted support for the manufacturer?

There should be an option to backup the registry also or at least the key you’re changing. I would recommend doing that prior to making more changes.

Sounds odd, but have you unplugged and plugged back in the Ethernet before rebooting, I have a NAS that does this time to time and it would wake up. You might try a different Ethernet cable and port too, mine stopped doing it after I relocated it, so thinking it may have been the cable I was using.

Have you gone to the computer manufacturers site and downloaded the latest firmware for the bios and drivers from them? Sometimes the ones MS has aren’t the latest or exact ones needed.

Last, but maybe an option, is to just buy a 1gb Ethernet PCIe card and abandon the on board adapter.

Just a few things I can think of, and I’m sure you’ve done a lot of them already, but just in case you haven’t. :)
 
Yeah, That behavior doesn't make sense. I can't imagine having to make registry changes just to have the ethernet work.

I'm assuming there is an onboard wireless and wired connections? Do those work as expected?

Guess I don't really have any help on this but I wonder if theres anything you can check on your router to see if it has any logs or clues as to why the wireless doesn't reconnect after the computer waking up.
 
I can't remember ever having a problem of that sort. I've always used the Ethernet connection on mine. Weird having to edit the registry. Like you I avoid doing that like the plague. Wish I could help you.
 
I did the unplug and replug with the boot. That was one of the suggestions online.

I updated the device driver for the TP link TX401 that I installed with the latest tx401 driver for win11 64 bit.

I am 100% certain it is a windows issue as there are just so many posts with exactly the same issue as I am having.

HP has the integrated ethernet port, but with very little info on the speed, so I opted to install the TPlink tx401.

The WIFI connection as well as the ethernet works fine - when connected.

The registry edits are to make the power managment tab show up in the ethernet device manager show up, so I can make a settings adjustment
Also another one in the Power settings in the systems setting to allow the ethernet to stay connected in sleep mode.

There are so many posts online about this that is seems like Microsoft does it on purpose.

Just a few minutes ago the screen saver activated but not sleep mode.
I moved the mouse and everything was fine.

Now I need to see what happens when the computer goes into sleep mode
Incedently I set the sleep mode to "never" - but I already know that the computer WILL go into sleep mode.
 
I was curious why the machine didn't come with an Ethernet port but, it sounds like it did. I would just use that. Something is going to sleep that pays attention to the bus your new card is plugged into. This can happen on USB devices as well if multiple controllers are present in the machine. I would expect a modern Ethernet card to have decent throughput. The industry has sooo exaggerated the speeds required to do things. I would run the built-in and if there are no problems with throughput, carry on :) If you want to go gearhead on it you can use commands like 'wmic nic get AdapterType, Name, Installed, MACAddress, PowerManagementSupported, Speed' (paste this in at a DOS [not Powershell] prompt) to see which adapters are power managed, check for dynamic MAC changes and so forth but I am quickly moving out of my field :D
 
Fascinating... (I mean sucks for all of the users.. but this is wildly pathological behavior on the part of windows/the network driver.. which is kind of interesting... from an abstract position for those of us not directly fighting it,).

I'm assuming the registry edit was to get the "Save power when system... or Energy Efficient Ethernet" options to show up as per:


which seems like it was only enabled by default for laptops even though.. yeah.. wow.. this is all crazy!

You're right there are a lot of reports of this.. wild!
 
Leo Voisine said:
Incedently I set the sleep mode to "never" - but I already know that the computer WILL go into sleep mode.
Click to expand...
Not related to your problem (I don't think), but sleep mode was keeping my Carbonite cloud backups from completing on my new Win11 machine. It goes into sleep mode despite setting it to "Never" in the system settings. I've even tried going into the BIOS but couldn't find anything related to sleep mode. (This is a $360 no-name Chinese mini computer from Amazon.) My workaround was to install free "mouse jiggler" software so the OS thinks something is happening even when I'm away.
 
I think I got it.

I just woke my computer after overnight sleep and I still have ethernet connection :):)

Glenn - the onboard ethernet had the same issue.
Reason I upgraded the ethernet is because there was not an option when I customized the build to upgrade and I wanted to ensure a really really really fast internet connection. The problem had nothing to do with me adding in the ethernet card.
WHY??
Primary reason is to try to get Solidworks to work for me. Not just a documented requirement. I crashed so many times trying it and I gave up until I could get the power I needed.

Ryan - yes it's all to do with power consuption.
My car has the dreaded - shut off engine - Gas saver feature that I have never heard ANYONE say they love it. I am sure it cost me a LOT of money and there will NEVER be a break even point. Car manufacturers get kudo's for it. Lower carbon footprint!!!

Part of the problem came in when the online suggestion said to just do this
Device manager
network adapter
your device
properties
power manegement tab ------ oh WHAT? there is no such tab!!!!!!!!!
---That was the registry edit - to get that tab to show up
first try did not work --- so try another reg edit
OK got the tab ----- set the power option to stay connected
oops --- that did not work

OK - try another route
ohhhhhh ----- that is not available
another reg edit

Round and round we go.


Vaughn - I will bet a great cup of coffee that your issue will be similar to mine.
 
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Leo Voisine said:
Ryan - yes it's all to do with power consuption.
Click to expand...
So many years ago the place I was working at had a "use it or loose it" power contract for ridiculously cheap power. They had managed to spin up one building but the other wasn't ready yet. So in order to not loose the power contract they put in "load banks" which are basically giant toasters that turn the power into heat. In this case some 4+ megawatts of heat..

So I'm sitting in my office looking out the window at 4+ megawatts of steam and heat waves and I get an email in my inbox from corporate.. "we encourage everyone to turn off their monitors over the xmas holiday in order to save energy" and I look at my computer and I look out the window.. and I look at my computer again...
 
That is just sooo typically rediculous but soo incredibly typical of industry.

The auto engine off is one example
The power save features is another

There are so many mandates to reduce carbon footprint that corporate will do anything to show they are participating even to the point of absolute senseless activities.

In the old days it was called "penny wise and pound foolish"
 
Leo Voisine said:
Glenn - the onboard ethernet had the same issue.
Click to expand...
I hope I don't violate anything by saying this but that is just design-stupidity. We are making so many great things and implementing them so poorly anymore. Sounds like a laptop or tablet designer got into the desktop lab. Glad you got around it.
 
Leo Voisine said:
There are so many mandates to reduce carbon footprint that corporate will do anything to show they are participating even to the point of absolute senseless activities.
Click to expand...

On the flip side I have a co-worker who was looking at putting in a rather large solar install which he had figured out a sub 10 year payback on (quite good I admit) due to his super high energy usage. I asked him if he'd looked at the insulation under his place (it's a trailer with a block foundation..) and he looked at me like I had two heads. It turned out though that when he got in an energy consultant some $400 of insulation (vs 25-30k of solar) cut his energy bills in HALF! Switching out his ancient heater for a more efficient heat pump cost another $3k but took another 30% off of that during the winter. So even if he does put in a solar setup eventually he'd need a much smaller and cheaper one (and the impetus dropped a lot with the lower bills).

The increases in efficiency in switching power supplies for computers has also been rather staggering. Circa 2005 or so they were maybe 70-75% efficient for a good one, they're now 90-95%+ mostly due to smarter electronics.

I also remember when we had our old laser printer turned on all the time (this was a mid/early 90's HP monstrosity) at our place in HI. We turned it off and our power bill dropped by fully half! It turned out it didn't have any sort of low power mode so it was basically an small resistance heater that was on ALL THE TIME to keep the fuser hot (plus the old fuser inks took a ton of heat to fuse).

So there are definitely gains to made and some are definitely worth while.. it's figuring out where they make sense.

glenn bradley said:
Sounds like a laptop or tablet designer got into the desktop lab
Click to expand...

Agree, this feels like there is some huge mismatch in the design process somewhere. The card should at most go into a low power mode to preserve wake on lan features and should definitely come back online when the computer does in either case. There is something super broken in the APIs. Having argued with a MS developer for several months to get them to be standards compliant with a specific TCP/IP feature (it was arguably a weird edge case and they did fix it eventually..) I can place bets where the problem is (likely both the MS interface being unclear and the driver developer not following it haha.. I've also had to deal with network card driver devs.. yikes..).
 
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