How to prevent LAN from turning off?

If I leave my E4300 (in sig) idle too long (like when watching TV or eating) the LAN will turn off, thus disconnecting me from AIM, email, etc.

How do I prevent the LAN from turning off when idle? I've looked everywhere, in DCP, device properties, and power schemes and settings.

 

Try disabling DCP all together?

 

Not an option. I find DCP to be useful, as surprising as that sounds.

 

Well, just to see if that works. I recently ran into that same problem on my E6400. I left it running a Windows Home Server Backup, and everytime it would somehow lose the wireless half-way through...puzzling. Pretty sure that doesn't normally happen.

 

open the control panel, click on network connections, right click on the wireless icon, click on properties.

At the top left of window click on configure, go to the power management tab, uncheck the box 'allow the computer to turn off this device to save power'

 

That option isn't there for me. It's all been replaced by Intel options, like Wake on LAN and all that.

 

Is this when running off battery? Is this wired or wireless network?

I have an option under DCP > Power Manager > Manage Power Settings > Advanced Settings > "Set network card to low power when running off battery".

I also have some power management options buried in the wireless properties.

John

 

This is for the wired network.

It does this on both battery an a/c power. If AIM and Pandora are open and actively using network resources, why would it still disable if I am not actively using the pc myself?

What I do is, I open/sign on to AIM (no away message or anything), and open Pandora Radio in Chrome or FF, then I'll proceed to do homework or the like. Eventually, the screen saver comes on (which is normal), and it's sometime after this that the network card turns itself off.

Basically, when I start using the desktop again, I find that Pandora stops playing and I've been disconnected from AIM, though these things re-connect automatically in a minute or so after "re-activating" the desktop.

 

Also look in the BIOS. There might be something there that relates to the network hardware behaviour.

John

 

I'll do that. Thanks for the tip!