"A network cable is unplugged" task bar pop up driving me crazy

[Blade_Jones]

I keep getting this "A network cable is unplugged" pop up on my task bar showing up every 45 seconds or so. I have a network of a MAC and a PC with a Cable modem and a D-Link Router. I use Dave software to transfer files between these two computers of mine. I am able to mount the PC share folder from my MAC, then sometimes transfer a file successfully. However if the "Network cable is unplugged" pop up shows up on my PC then the file transfer is immediately stopped. I've tried replacing the Ethernet cable. Tried "repairing" the "Local area connection 2" on my PC but it doesn't fix it. If I turn off my MAC, then the pop up stops, but of course I can't transfer files to my MAC with it turned off! Something fishy goin' on here.

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
Intel 3 GHz P4

Mac G5

[Blade_Jones]

OK. I tried bypassing the router and instead hooking the two computers together with just an Ethernet cable. Everything worked great. The "Network Cable is unplugged" warning stopped. I was able to transfer files perfectly. Of course if I want to get back on the Internet with my PC I have to unplug the Ethernet cable from my MAC and plug it back into the router. For now this is a fix that I can live with, although it's silly to have to repatch the cable each time. I just wish I knew the proximate cause of the problem.

[JamesO]

If the problem did not show up when directly connecting the 2 machines, I see 2 possible issues.

1 - A flaky Ethernet cable. Try swapping the Ethernet cables between the 2 machines.

2 - Something is up with the router. Is the firmware up to date? Maybe you are overloading the routers processor when locally transferring files?? This may be a lower end router that does not expect much traffic from the WAN interface and they did not put a robust CPU in it?

JamesO

[Terrister]

Try the pc on a different port on your router. If this does not work, see below.

You may need to do a reset on the router. You should see a button on the back or bottom. You will have to reconfigure the router after doing this.