Ethernet-over-USB-C adaptor not working on laptop

[Chuck_Morris]

Hi everyone,

I bought my HP laptop back in March at a French retailer (Darty) and it's been working alright since then, but when it came to accessing shared folders on my other (Lenovo) PC, transfer rate was so low over my home WiFi network that I resorted to plugging a crossover Ethernet cable into the Lenovo on one end (it has a Gigabit Ethernet port) and in my HP laptop on the other end, by way of a 10/100 Ethernet-over-USB-A adaptor I had handy.

Transfer rate is what you might expect from a 10/100 adaptor, so I decided to buy a (cheap, I'll confess) Ethernet-over-USB-C full Gigabit adaptor, since my HP laptop comes with a USB-C port.

I've had the new adaptor for two days and I already regret buying it, it gives me so much grief.

It plugs alright, but then the connection icon in Control Panel blinks in and out with the repetitive system sound indicating that a new peripheral has been discovered, and that's it.

This adaptor comes with a Realtek chip, so I updated the driver several times, no dice. With some drivers, I even get a BSOD stating that ndis.sys is in error.

Before I return the adaptor to the vendor, I'd like to know what my other options are. That's where, hopefully, you come in...

[Chuck_Morris]

FWIW, the adaptor and the cables are working fine, because I plugged the adaptor in the USB-C port on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S smartphone, turned off both WiFi and cellular and I have access to the Internet via Ethernet, so there's definitely something fishy with the USB-C port on my HP laptop.

I tried several cables I had handy, still a no-go, with the occasional (regular, more like) BSOD thrown in. Either the USB-C port on the HP laptop can't accomodate a Gigabit Ethernet adaptor, for some reason, or Windows 10 loads a bad driver when the adaptor is plugged in, I don't know, but there seems to be a problem on the USB-C port itself.

Can someone here tell me where to look to update USB-C drivers on this specific laptop, just to cover all bases?

EDIT: to be fair, I must add that I've tried to link the HP with a 2006 MacBook Pro (it has a Gigabit Ethernet port too) using the adaptor I've just bought, and though there wasn't any Internet connection (the Mac isn't connected to any network, I use it sparingly), no BSOD and the Network section in Control Panel showed that the Gigabit Ethernet card on the HP was up and running, so I don't know what to make of this...

[Chuck_Morris]

Problem solved: the vendor gave me a refund and I bought a new (and more expensive) Satechi adaptor (the one that comes with 3 USB-3 ports on top).

The new adaptor, also with a Realtek Gbe chip, works flawlessly. Go figure.