I have a Windows 11 laptop, and I’m trying to communicate with an embedded system (non-Windows) that communicates via Ethernet. The laptop and the embedded system are connected through an inexpensive four-port network switch. The laptop and the embedded system are both configured to use static IPv4 addresses on the same subnet.
Windows on the laptop sometimes recognizes the Ethernet connection right away; sometimes it recognizes the connection after several minutes; sometimes it never recognizes the connection. The tribal knowledge at my company says to reboot the computer if the connection doesn’t work. Sometimes rebooting helps, and sometimes it doesn’t.
When the connection is recognized, Windows says that the Ethernet port is connected with no internet connection, and the embedded system can be pinged. When the connection isn’t recognized, the Network Connections settings page says that the Ethernet port isn’t connected, and pinging the embedded system fails.
Unfortunately I can’t see what’s happening on the embedded system; when I can ping the embedded system the test software works, and when I can’t ping the embedded system, my test software shows a spinning circle.
The network engineer inside me wants to run Wireshark to see what the difference in the traffic is between a successful session and an unsuccessful one, but I don’t have two work days to brute-force the problem.
Can anyone give me any tips to get Windows to recognize the ethernet connection? Maybe a specific procedure for powering the switch, powering the embedded system, and connecting the ethernet cable to the laptop? Or even better, a command to force Windows to connect?
