By Dinesh
If your Windows 10 desktop or laptop suddenly lost the network connectivity and showing limited connectivity, then this how-to guide will be useful. Your Wi-Fi or Wired network can go offline and can’t connect to the network. This will impact the internet and other network activities on your computer. The below steps show how to fix Windows 10 limited connectivity issue on the wireless or wired network.
If it shows as limited connectivity, mostly the network adapter would not have got an IP from the DHCP. If only one particular PC is facing this issue on your network/home, then apparently nothing wrong with the network setup or DHCP server, it is a problem on your Windows 10 laptop or desktop. When I recently faced this similar issue randomly on a Windows 10 and another Windows 8.1 laptop, the following steps helped me to solve the problem.
This problem is not specifically for the Wireless network adapter; it can happen to your LAN wired network adapter too. It’s an issue with the IP stack (IPv4 or IPv6 – based on which protocol you are using). There are few solutions available on the internet, but let me start with the possible (which worked for me straight away) solution, then other methods.
If you get “DNS Server Not Found” error on Windows 10/8.1 while connected through the wireless adapter, you must check this guide to fix it. Updating or re-installing the WiFi adapter driver will solve it most of the time. But this limited connectivity issue in Windows 10/8.1 could be due to the IP address issue. The network adapter will not get an IP address; hence it will be getting APIPA address range, something like 169.245.x.x, that means you are in trouble.
Here is the Solution for Windows 10 Limited Connectivity – Wi-Fi and Cable Network
As described earlier, this is due to IP address/IP stack problem which can be resolved by resetting the TCP/IP stack to its default value. TCP/IP is a protocol used in most of the computers (including Mac, Linux, and Windows) and other network devices to make communication in LAN or WAN.
Use NetShell utility (netsh.exe) command to perform the task.
1) Open the command prompt as Administrator. Search ‘cmd’ and right click on cmd then select ‘Run as administrator’ as below.
2) Type following commands –
netsh winsock reset catalog (Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults)
netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log (Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults)
Source
3) Reboot the computer.
The Problem:
One of the above reset command removes all persistent static route entries from your Windows 10 computer. I faced this issue and had to add those static routes again by ‘route add’ command.
This will mostly solve the problem of limited connectivity issue on Windows 10 or 8.1.
4) If you are still facing the problem and your Windows 10 or 8.1 can’t connect to the internet and other local network resources, continue below steps.
The following few more netsh commands may fix the problem. Make sure you are entering below commands in command prompt which was opened as Administrator.
netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
a int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
I’m sure one of the above commands may fix the issue or at least make your Windows 10 network faster.
5) If your wired network is fine, but you are having trouble in the wireless network only, then you can change the power options and wake up the WiFi Adapter.
Right click on the WiFi adapter and select Properties.
Click on ‘Configure’.
On the ‘Power Management’ tab, uncheck the below option.
This will prevent Windows 10 to turn off the WiFi adapter when it goes to sleep or hibernation mode. Because when the laptop resumes from sleep, the WiFi adapter may not wake up and work properly. So, avoiding this feature may help in having proper wireless network connectivity in Windows 10.
6) A discussion here mentioned that having a 3rd party antivirus and personal firewall software such as BitDefender also can disturb the network connectivity in Windows 10/8.1. So, if none of the above solutions work for you and you have an dedicated Antivirus software with firewall enabled, you can uninstall it or find a way to allow Internet connectivity and IP requests in the firewall settings. It might help.
I hope one of the above methods will solve the limited connectivity or not getting IP address issue on Windows 10 and Windows 8.1. Also, keep updating the Windows OS and drivers (especially LAN and WiFi network adapters) from Windows update. They will fix the issue permanently.
Original Link: http://www.sysprobs.com/fixed-windows-10-limited-connectivity-not-getting-ip-from-dhcp