Hi everyone,

I have an IP35-e with Windows XP SP3 installed with all the updates. For a few months now something odd has been happening. At random times network connectivity will suddenly drop. It usually manifests with my wife complaining that she can't print, and then it turns out that all ethernet access is down. When this happens, Device Manager doesn't show the network adapter. The way I've been fixing it is to choose "Scan for hardware changes" in Device Manager; after a few seconds the network adapter suddenly appears and we're back up and running.

The Windows event viewer doesn't show anything, and I updated the network driver with the latest one from the manufacturer's site (I forget now, I think it's Marvell).

I kind of forget when this first started, so I suppose it is possible that it happened when we installed a new HP all-in-one wireless printer, but I'm not sure about that. I also have VMWare Workstation installed, which creates a couple virtual network adapters, but I don't know if that's interfering with anything.

Anyone have an idea of what could be causing this? If I can't solve it I will have to buy a PCI network card, which seems like a waste of money as the built-in chip should work and has worked for a couple years.

Thanks!