Broadcom NetLink Ethernet card working intermittently.

I have a similar problem with my Dell Desktop (Late 2009), though my broadband (wired) connection drops and reverts to my wireless card. I have to restart in order to reset the broadband wired connection. This feature is making me crazy!!! One source I have read indication I might have an unstable Internet signal, however that makes no sense as the system reverts to the wireless connection.

I had a similar problem with my Dell 8100 machine. The On-board internet controller on the Dell 8100 is not compatible with WIN 10, and there isn't an updated driver. There is, however, a cheap solution. Purchase and install a HiRO H50218 PCIe Ethernet adapter for about $15 at Amazon. Before installing the new NIC first enter the BIOS and disable the on-board controller, a Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet controller. In the BIOS look under Chipset options to disable the on-board NIC. Now install the new NIC in an available PCIe slot and reboot. At the logon screen it will appear that you don't have an internet connection, but once you log on WIN 10 will find and install the proper driver automatically. That's it.

Dan,
Thanks much for the information! I will give it a shot and will follow-up on the board!

Dan Jay said:

I had a similar problem with my Dell 8100 machine. The On-board internet controller on the Dell 8100 is not compatible with WIN 10, and there isn't an updated driver. There is, however, a cheap solution. Purchase and install a HiRO H50218 PCIe Ethernet adapter for about $15 at Amazon. Before installing the new NIC first enter the BIOS and disable the on-board controller, a Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet controller. In the BIOS look under Chipset options to disable the on-board NIC. Now install the new NIC in an available PCIe slot and reboot. At the logon screen it will appear that you don't have an internet connection, but once you log on WIN 10 will find and install the proper driver automatically. That's it.

JCSpringer2005 said:

Dan,
Thanks much for the information! I will give it a shot and will follow-up on the board!

Good Luck. So far the new NIC is working like a champ.

**Update 10 AM PST 8/15/2015**
At: Ethernet NIC NetXtreme I Desktop/Mobile | Broadcom I found a newer driver V 17.2.0.0 (8/5/2015) that looks like it would support windows 10. After downloading, I cannot install it.
1: I tried Device manager>Rightclick on "Broadcom ethernet">Update driver...>manually install>select folder with downloaded driver= "Best driver is already currently installed. " So since that didn't work. I tried replacing the drivers in C:\Windows\system32\drivers, this also didn't work.
How can I install this new driver?

I experienced the exact same issue of Ethernet connectivity issues on my Dell XPS 8300 with a Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet adapter after "upgrading" to Windows 10.

I was able to manually install the updated driver to 17.2.0.0 as follows:

After downloading and extracting the zip file NetLink®/NetXtreme® I Desktop/Mobile/Server (x64):

1. Go to Network Settings and click Change Adapter Options
2. Right-click on the Ethernet/Local Area Connection device and select Properties
3. Click on Configure and go to the Drivers Tab
4. Click on Update Driver and then select Browse My Computer
5. Select "Let me pick from a list..." and then select Have Disk
6. Locate the downloaded driver file (b57nd60a.inf) and select OK
7. You will now see a long list of drivers: Select Broadcom Netlink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet (about 1/3 of the way down on my list).
8. Click Next and you should be good to go!

I only applied this update today, but since the update I have no longer experienced the Ethernet connectivity issues I was experiencing prior to the update.

I'll follow up if the problem persists despite the update.

I have a Dell 8100 that was having connection problems and I originally installed a new NIC, which did solve the problem, but that NIC just failed. Since I was back were I started I decided to update the driver for the on-board card as you suggested. When I selected the driver WIN warned that it was not the right driver and should not be used, but I went ahead ... nothing to lose. It appeared not to work, even after I rebooted the machine, but sometime later the connection was restored and seems to be working fine. Have to say I'm a bit baffled, but happy for the moment. Thanks for the information.

sheester said:

I experienced the exact same issue of Ethernet connectivity issues on my Dell XPS 8300 with a Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet adapter after "upgrading" to Windows 10.

I was able to manually install the updated driver to 17.2.0.0 as follows:

After downloading and extracting the zip file NetLink®/NetXtreme® I Desktop/Mobile/Server (x64):

1. Go to Network Settings and click Change Adapter Options
2. Right-click on the Ethernet/Local Area Connection device and select Properties
3. Click on Configure and go to the Drivers Tab
4. Click on Update Driver and then select Browse My Computer
5. Select "Let me pick from a list..." and then select Have Disk
6. Locate the downloaded driver file (b57nd60a.inf) and select OK
7. You will now see a long list of drivers: Select Broadcom Netlink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet (about 1/3 of the way down on my list).
8. Click Next and you should be good to go!

I only applied this update today, but since the update I have no longer experienced the Ethernet connectivity issues I was experiencing prior to the update.

I'll follow up if the problem persists despite the update.

Dan Jay said:

I have a Dell 8100 that was having connection problems and I originally installed a new NIC, which did solve the problem, but that NIC just failed. Since I was back were I started I decided to update the driver for the on-board card as you suggested. When I selected the driver WIN warned that it was not the right driver and should not be used, but I went ahead ... nothing to lose. It appeared not to work, even after I rebooted the machine, but sometime later the connection was restored and seems to be working fine. Have to say I'm a bit baffled, but happy for the moment. Thanks for the information.

I was having the same problems. I have a Dell Inspiron 5800 circa 2010, and I had intermittent Internet connection issues and I would always go in to reset the network adapter settings and auto-troubleshoot problems and it would sometimes reestablish the connections only to fail immediately afterwards. I downloaded the updated device drivers from BroadCom's website but either I didn't load it correctly or I was using the wrong one. The above instructions have now worked for me.

I love some of the other advice that was given in some of the other unnamed threads and by Windows Support, such as shutting your security software off, etc and there are like 10 elaborate steps, which of course would never work. These instructions seemed to work like a charm. I have been on for hours with no interruptions. Thank you @sheester.....you have restored my faith. I had upgraded and downgraded back to 7.1 four or five times trying different things. My father has the exact same system and his computer had no issues at all. I even contacted Verizon Fios to ask them if they knew the correct drivers for their Wifi/Modem and even updated the modem in case the firmware was an issue, to no avail. I thought it even had to do with the fact that I had cloned my prior hard drive with OS 7.1 on it before upgrading to Windows 10 and looked at some of the reasons this might have caused an issue, which in turn it did cause my computer to not fully shut down when selected. However, I was able to correct that issue in the power settings tab. So this solution has two successes so far, possibly three?

I did resolve my problem. I was able to locate and manually install an updated driver. However I don't now recall who provided the information on that fix that I used. With the new driver it's working perfectly.

tomloc18 said:

I was having the same problems. I have a Dell Inspiron 5800 circa 2010, and I had intermittent Internet connection issues and I would always go in to reset the network adapter settings and auto-troubleshoot problems and it would sometimes reestablish the connections only to fail immediately afterwards. I downloaded the updated device drivers from BroadCom's website but either I didn't load it correctly or I was using the wrong one. The above instructions have now worked for me.

I love some of the other advice that was given in some of the other unnamed threads and by Windows Support, such as shutting your security software off, etc and there are like 10 elaborate steps, which of course would never work. These instructions seemed to work like a charm. I have been on for hours with no interruptions. Thank you @sheester.....you have restored my faith. I had upgraded and downgraded back to 7.1 four or five times trying different things. My father has the exact same system and his computer had no issues at all. I even contacted Verizon Fios to ask them if they knew the correct drivers for their Wifi/Modem and even updated the modem in case the firmware was an issue, to no avail. I thought it even had to do with the fact that I had cloned my prior hard drive with OS 7.1 on it before upgrading to Windows 10 and looked at some of the reasons this might have caused an issue, which in turn it did cause my computer to not fully shut down when selected. However, I was able to correct that issue in the power settings tab. So this solution has two successes so far, possibly three?

that is the right driver, but you need to select that you have the disk, and point to the correct one on the list. I just don't recall the complete instructions.

afurmanczyk said:

Hi everyone,

First off, I'd like to thank everyone in advance for their time and help with this issue.

I recently upgraded to windows 10 on my desktop. I've run into a problem with my "Broadcom NetLink TM Gigabit Ethernet" card, basically the issue is that the internet connection will suddenly stop and show as limited access. I get the error message "Default Gateway not available." I can usually fix it by restarting the computer or auto troubleshooting, but then the connection could break again after as little as 5 minutes. I've been unable to fix this problem after hours of searching through the interwebs. Through my googling this seems like an old issue dating back to windows 7/8/8.1 (maybe longer?) and usually is resolved by updating or manually reinstalling a new driver. I can't find any help for windows 10, and the solutions presented online aren't working for me.

I've tried these fixes:

1. Disabling the firewall. (Failed)
2. Updating the card automatically through device manager. (Failed)
3. Uninstalling the driver completely to let windows recognize the card by itself on restart. (Failed)
4. Looking for general windows updates. (Failed to solve problem.)
5. Manually installing new drivers from the Broadcom website. (I noticed there were no newer windows 10 drivers available on the site. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place? Either way, it made me wonder if perhaps the reason this issue is happening is that there are no windows 10 drivers available for my Ethernet card?) (Failed)

At this point I'm at a loss for what to do. Please advise!

Desktop Specs, Dell XPS (2011) intel i7, 16 GB RAM, 1GB Nvidia GT420.
Current most "up to date" driver is V15.6.1.2 (1/29/2013)
Internet specs, Broadband through twin phonelines, 100 mbps down, 30 mbps up.


**Update 10 AM PST 8/15/2015**
At: Ethernet NIC NetXtreme I Desktop/Mobile | Broadcom I found a newer driver V 17.2.0.0 (8/5/2015) that looks like it would support windows 10. After downloading, I cannot install it.
1: I tried Device manager>Rightclick on "Broadcom ethernet">Update driver...>manually install>select folder with downloaded driver= "Best driver is already currently installed. " So since that didn't work. I tried replacing the drivers in C:\Windows\system32\drivers, this also didn't work.
How can I install this new driver?