Lan Packet Data Connection Error

In my hometown, the internet speed is indeed, crawling. Comparing it to what we, students, can have from our university abroad, this internet speed is just plain ridiculous. Worse yet, it is still not cheap subscribing to a good internet service providers (ISP). Our 'good' ISP can still disconnect their customer's internet connection without any particular reason in a random time and place.

So what I suggest others is to just purchase 1 modem from any 'good' ISP and share the connections to other computers. This way we can cut the costs sacrificing the convenience. This connection-sharing is usually quite stable throughout the times. However it can, but rarely, break. And when the internet connection has problem, I usually first blame the ISP though it may not always be true. Sometimes it can be my own laptop internet configuration fault which may be caused due to a disabled DHCP, incorrect or invalid IP etc.

Then how do I differ and know the problem when my laptop cannot connect to the internet during this parallel-connection-sharing?

One of the many possible ways is to allow Windows to always show and check LAN packet errors. By applying some easy registry tweak, you can see the errors from both the send and error of a

1. Press Windows-button+R or from Start menu, type: regedit

2. Navigate to this key directory:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\Connections\StatMon

If you cannot find StatMon, then right-click on the right pane > New > Key, enter StatMon

3. From StatMon, double-click on ShowLanErrors and change the value from 0 to 1.
If ShowLanErros is not there, from StatMon also, you can right click on the right pane > New > DWORD value. Or for 64-bit system, it is DWORD (32-bit) value. You need to have the value as 1.
You can do step 2 and 3 the same way when you do the right-click-value-addition on regedit for letting your Windows Live Messenger signing in multiple accounts. Now you should be able to check for the data packet error from your Local Area Connection status.


Note that this trick will not work for Home version of any Windows. If you have applied this trick, but is not showing on your "Local Area Connection Status", try to reboot.

So what do I usually do if the error comes from my own laptop?
Simple but quite reliable, the auto-problem-detecting feature from Windows 7 never disappoints me. Do you notice the red cross on the connection line from your "Network and Sharing Center" window? Click on it and let Windows try to fix the problem itself. Other thing you can do is to reset the LAN connection by unplugging the cable for about 5-10 seconds before you plug it in again. The last option is, and has always been, to reboot.

Do you have any personal problem with your LAN connection? Check the error status message and google it. If you cannot find the fix, you can post it here.