I could live with this, but its very annoying. I have no time to write this long post I try be as much specific about problem as possible.

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 x64.

Hardware platform: Laptop.

In short: NETWORK CONNECTION LOSES INTERNET AFTER A WHILE (this is 100% Windows, not the modem’s fault).

More details: After turning on the computer, I can use the Internet easily. All works fine, until 3 to 5 hours passes and suddenly I notice that something’s wrong. The Internet is connected, but not functioning as it should be. For example: Facebook - if there is more then one tab open on Facebook, one tab loses connection to chat messages and stays offline, meanwhile the second tab can still perfectly receive messages in Facebook chat from friends.

BUT, if I hit SHIFT+F5 to refresh a page, all I get is just few pictures of Facebook and the remainder of the page won’t load. Chat won’t work anymore. If I hit SHIFT F5 again, it wont load anything at all. It seems like the Internet browser (Firefox in this case) loses some kind of authentication to be able to receive data, slowly. But it doesn’t stop here. This happens to every single app on my PC at that point of time, no matter whether I’m using Chrome or Skype, they all start to lose data little by little.

Things get even more strange: If at that time I’m connected to my Android device in USB debugging mode to my laptop, the developer console “Eclipse” loses connection to my Android device, at same time as the Internet cuts out. However, none of my other USB devices that are connected in standard mode, such as USB flash drive, keyboard, mouse, etc… They still function perfectly.

The problem appeared probably after one hard laptop shutdown, when you hold the power button until it shuts off. Usually this wont effect the PC, but.. sometimes it will, especially if the shutdown occurred while registry code was being written and there was no backup.

At first, days after the Internet connection problem occurred, I tried using System Restore, which didn’t help. Then I kept restarting the PC, which allows the Internet to temporarily work for another 3~5 hours. This got annoying and so I started to look for solutions.

I thought I found a solution but it seems like its just temporary one, which gives just a few more hours of Internet. What I found: I have to go into the services app, and STOP “Internet Connection Sharing ICS” this will make the Internet work again for about 20 minutes, then I can go back to services and start and stop the service, resulting in an extra 1-2 hours of Internet. Also my USB debugging device starts to function to! It’s weird, because all I do is kill the INTERNET sharing service. Unfortunately, after the Internet is gone third time,  nothing helps. If I restart the service, nothing happens. At that point, no page will load and I have to restart my PC.

SYMPTOMS:

Internet starts to behave oddly after a few hours of use. Internet connection icon in notifications displays a red X, but if you press on it, it shows that it’s connected to the Internet. Network Sharing Center -> Change adapter settings: Shows nothing, as if there’s no network devices installed. This issue occurs regardless of how I’m connected to the Internet, such as 4G, dongle, etc. . .

Things I tried:

Reinstalling network adapter. Repeatedly restarting the network connection sharing service (and many other services). Removing the laptop battery. Running Windows network troubleshooter.

Also noticed this: Processes running the NlaSvc and Netprofm services (using ProcMon) and noticed that both were denied read/write access to subkeys within the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList hierarchy.

The processes were running as NetworkService and LocalService, respectively, so I tried adding full access for these service accounts to the entire subkey mentioned above. This didn’t help.

Also: Network Location Awareness was set to “automatic startup” (the same setting as default) didn’t help.

Now I am out of options. This is really not an easy case to solve. And please don’t suggest reinstalling Windows — this is not a solution! Because I am a graphics designer, my Windows have lots and lots of custom-made apps. It would take me ages to set everything up as it is now.