Networking → Fixing Ethernet Connection Problems on the Lenovo ThinkPad T410
Earlier this year I purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad T410 laptop. Nice box. But shortly after purchasing it I began to notice that its ethernet adaptor would lose connection on a regular-yet-random basis regardless of the network I happened to be on. I dual-boot with this machine and I did not seem to be experiencing the same problem while running Ubuntu. So… I suspected the culprit might be my Windows 7 network driver. Sure enough, after trying several versions of Lenovo-supported drivers, the ultimate solution to this problem was to dump the Lenovo driver completely and download the driver for the 82577LM ethernet controller directly from Intel. Problem solved.
Note that in addition to the installing the base driver for the ethernet controller, the package will also give you the option to install Intel PROSet for Windows Device Manager, Intel Advanced Networking Services, and SNMP for Intel network adapters for Windows 7. The first two are selected for you by default. If installed, Intel’s PROSet software provides a custom device manager property page for the adaptor which has some pretty nice features, including diagnostics. Contrary to its name, the Intel Advanced Networking Services feature does not install additional Windows services, rather it installs a couple of extra tabs in the aforementioned device manager property page allowing you to setup and manage teaming and V-LAN tagging on the adaptor. The SNMP for Intel network adapters feature is simply an SNMP agent enabling you to send event notifications via SNMP (requires that the Windows SNMP service be running).
Tags: Hardware, Networking, Windows
July 16th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Excellent. Been dealing with the same problem on my T410 and this seems to have resolved the issue. Thanks for sharing.
July 17th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Luke H, glad it helped. Thanks for posting.
August 2nd, 2010 at 5:38 am
article very good
December 2nd, 2010 at 9:52 pm
i’ve been facing the same issues with my t410 running windows 7 in 64 bit mode, but i tried this about a week ago and am still facing the random network issues (basically see a yellow exclamation mark in the task bar icon for the network). the only solution back then was to reboot the computer (felt like i was going back to the win95 days).
i have tried this latest set of drivers, will see if there’s any difference, are you guys not seeing the issues anymore?
December 3rd, 2010 at 10:31 am
stephen, thanks for your comment. No, mine seems to be working fine. I did attempt an update to a later version of Intel’s driver shortly after I wrote the post but discovered some problems with it. So, you might try reverting back to an older version of the driver. The driver I’m using now – v15.4 – seems to be rock solid. Unfortunately though, it looks like you can now only download v15.5 and later from Intel’s site.
Good luck, I hope it you get it working.
July 19th, 2011 at 4:37 am
I was facing the same issue with all of my T 410 laptops & and got resolved.
Download latest lan driver from intel http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18713&ProdId=3244&lang=eng.
Get success……….
August 3rd, 2011 at 9:02 am
Hi,
Just like to say thanks for this as it resolved the issue I had with my network adapter on my T410. I have a similar issue with the Wireless adapter. Anyone else have this problem and can offer any advice?
Thanks.
August 4th, 2011 at 9:54 am
Stephen, thanks for your comment. A couple of things you may want to consider. First, if you can live without it, uninstall Lenovo’s “Access Connections.” While it has some nice features, I found the reliability of my wireless connections generally improved without it (and the amount of bloat on my system was reduced as well). Second, if you chose Lenovo’s 11b/g/n wireless adapter when you purchased the machine, you might consider downloading and installing a driver directly from Realtek, the OEM for that radio. The Realtek model number for the radio is my T410, for example, is the RTL8192SE and the driver can be found here. You should verify which model exists in T410 before proceeding.
November 15th, 2011 at 5:44 am
It solved the problem, now I am able to work with ethernet connection as well , thanks for the post
November 15th, 2011 at 7:33 am
Karna, you’re welcome. I’m glad it worked for you.