windows 10 computer randomly stops being able to connect to other computer on the network

[marco992]

After awhile I can't connect to other comps with e.g. //COMPUTER2 and I don't see other computers in windows explorer. Is there a service or something I can try restarting without having to restart the whole computer (I like to keep this machine up for about a month at a time)

[BeemerBiker]

There are a couple of things that could cause this but more information is needed.

What is your product ID or model?  It is possible a driver or the bios needs to be updated.

1.  You mention randomly.  Does it happen while browsing / like in the middle of running an application or two? 

If so, can you run the network troubleshooter?  Right click on the network icon and find the troubleshooter

If problem show up your driver is suspect.  If no problem do the other computer see your system?  If not then then reboot the modem or gateway.  Consider putting all network gateway, router, , switches, etc on a UPS.  

2. If you are away from your computer for a while it can go to sleep and when it "wakes up" is the network loss detected?

 If so, the driver or bios is suspect.  This can happen after win10 update as sleep may not work properly or works differently from before due to Microsoft changes.

Are you hardwired or connected through Wii-Fi?    The loss of Wi-Fi can cause networks to go down temporarily and any access is then lost and MAY not come back after the signals comes back up.  If mapped to "//computer2/SharedFolder" then the mapping will be lost although the internet MAY have come back.

It might be useful to look in the Event Viewer for error messages to try pin down what happened and what was running when  the problem occurred.  To make it easier to find the errors you should delete the existing logs.  Do not bother saving them.  Logs can get so large that it takes a long time to load the event viewer.  This way you start with a fresh log file

In addition it can be useful to run the "HP Support Assistant"  There is also an  HP Diagnostic app: the version I have is 1.8.0.0.  You can also reboot and press ESC  a few time and run the HP Diagnostic if your system has that bios feature.    Some of my HP systems have that feature and other do not.