XPS 8300 Windows 10 Broadcom network adapter disconnect FIXED

What was the fix / I have been battling this for a month :( Bob

Hi Bob,

Have you tried to install a new network adapter? Make sure that the driver is supported for Windows 10.
If you don't have a spare PCI slot available, then you can try an external network adapter with an USB cable. Don't forget to disable your old network adapter in the device manager.
This has solved the problem for me.

Maybe you can borrow a network adapter first, just to test if this solves the problem. I can't tell if your problem is also driver related for the onboard network adapter or if it might be related to something else as most of us have this with the XPS 8300. And I haven't heard about this issue for the Inspiron 580 before.

Good luck!

Hi Bob,

The fix was to install the original network drivers, from Dell's site. These drivers are old, and meant for Windows 7, but it fixed the network disconnect problem in Win10 on the XPS 8300 for most of us.

For the Inspiron 580, I found the original network driver is "R250303", so you could search for and install that. Or just get it from
www.dell.com/.../DriversDetails

If you try this, please let us know if it worked or not.
I'm glad to see this workaround is still helping people for the XPS 8300.

Thanks , My son said he has a spare adapter, never had a problem until I downloaded 10. The first time I was able to reset it by unplugging the router, that didn't work again after that. Now the only way is to do a restart. Very frustrating, sometimes goes for a week before it freezes then it may freeze up a couple times a day. Will have my son put in the new adapter and see what happens.

Thanks

Bob 

I have tried it all and nothing works more than a few days. However, in my case, I don't lose the internet, just the connection to Office 365 Outlook.

In the event viewer I get that it couldn't connect to the dns server.

Restarting is the only solution that works.

John

Also, my office has 12 other desktops that I ugraded from Win 7, 8, and 8.1. All the other machines are Insperion. None of those have any issues at all. My XPS 8300 is the only one.

Can someone recommend an adapter that I can buy to replace what I have?? Fwiw, I have been using a Linksys wusb6300 to bypass the nic (not plugged in) but it doesn't have the proper drivers for win 10 either and it also disconnects every few days or even more than once a day, depending.

Fwiw, on the Broadcom Netlink I have also tried installing using win 7 compatiblity mode but as mentioned, no luck with that either.

John

No need to buy a new adapter, just need the right drivers.

For many of us just installing R282233 from Dell works. This provides the 14.2.0.7 drivers, dated 2010. I've been running for a while now with no issues, and getting good performance over my 1Gbps network.

Installing in Win 7 compatibility mode is important, but as I mentioned earlier, I had to uninstall existing drivers. I initially installed this and it didn't update the driver but said it was installed. I uninstalled it and then reinstalled and it was okay.

p.s. I've noticed I now have Broadcom Advanced Control Suite 3 installed which gives details of the network card and some diagnostics. I'm not sure if that came in with Dell's driver or from one I tried from Broadcom (that didn't work), or maybe it's come in through a Windows Update but then the driver is still dated 2010.

Hi,

R2282233 is still problematic for me and I am of course using the same drivers as you with the same date. 

I actually went a week or so without a hitch then it started again. Right now I am using the Linksys wireless adapter which has its own issues but I know flat out from talking to Linksys that it doesn't work properly with Windows 10. However, it works better than the NIC.

I have not tried using the wireless feature of the network adapter yet. I just assumed it wouldn't work either but you never know.

I have the Advanced Control Suite 3 too but I have never ran it. I will goof around with it and see what I can get from it.

Thank you for trying to help me out.

John

thanks for this information. i made a horrible mistake in trying to rolback to windows 7 immediately after the issue. this resulted in windows not being able to connect to their server and crashed the rollback instal leaving me with having to reinstall everything from scratch. thank goodness i had the windows 7 dvd and code. took many hours of updates at super high speed to fix  ;(    so if you decide to roll back make sure you reboot and get connectivity first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi,

I gave up trying to fix it. Instead, I bought a Netgear Wireless Adapter A6210. The disc it came with has Win 8.1 drivers but it allows you to update to the latest drives during install which gave me the Window 10 driver.

So far so good. 

John

Hmmm... After Win 10 had updated itself to ver. 1511, 10586 and - predictably - installed back the 15.6.1.2 network adapter driver in the process, downgrading to 14.2.0.7 no longer seems to work. I have tried removing all Broadcom software and then running R282233 but when the old driver is installed Device Manager reports that the network adapter failed to start. You can roll back to 15.6.1.2 or uninstall R282233 and reboot and win 10 will reinstall the 15.6.1.2 driver.

Has anyone managed to revert to 14.2.0.7 under Win 10 release 1511, 10586?

To be fair I have not tested the Ethernet network connection in anger after the 1511 update, so - who knows - it may work OK with 15.6.1.2. 

You might try downloading the Driver from the Broadcom Website which is version 15.6.0.14 and installing it.  I have not updated to the new Windows 10 release 1511; however  I had the  Version 14.2.0.7 installed and somehow the Windows managed to update to the Driver version 15.6.0.14 which works great.  

Before you try to install Version 15.6.0.14, you might want to create a restore point just in case.  

Please let me know if this works for you since I will try update to 1511 in the near future.

Firstly, sorry, correction: the driver installed under 1511 is 15.6.1.3 and NOT 15.6.1.2 (which had been installed by the the initial public release of Win 10).  Whether this makes a difference, we shall see.

Adapters listed under 15.6.0.14 on the Broadcom site do not include BCM57788 but I'll give it a bash if the current driver does not work out. To be honest, for me it is a bit academic, as I mainly use the wi-fi connection but it would be good to know that the fixed line is there and working fine when/if you need it.

mc

Hey guys,

I posted earlier and I still haven't been able to remedy my issue. When I first updated my PC to Windows 10, the issue was with the Network dropping out. After using the older driver suggested on the thread, the Network issue was fixed, but I began having issues with audio. It would work well for awhile and then all of a sudden it would start to pop and crackle. Does anyone know how to fix this? I tried different audio drivers, different network drivers, and the issue still remains the same.

I know its not an issue with my sound card, because I dual boot a Mac on the system, and on my Mac OS there is never an issue with the sound. I rolled back to Win7 because the issue has been plaguing me for months. I think last month I rolled back to Windows 8.1 as well and the audio issue followed me there, even though before updating to Win10 I was on 8.1 with no issue. Any and all help would be much appreciated. I have the Realtek Sound card. Thanks again!!

Didn't work.