Windows Connection Manager service terminates

R

RickSenske

I work in an enterprise environment and I have three Dell Precision 5530 Windows 10 Enterprise laptops that all have the same problem.


When I connect the laptop to the domain, the Ethernet adapter will disable itself after about 1 minute. If I remove the laptop from the domain and reset the GPOs and security policies back to default, the computer will connect just fine and the adapter does not disable itself. My domain has 500+ computers (Windows 10/2012/2016 and Redhat) and this problem doesn't exist on any other computer. Since these computers exist in a R&D secure closed enclave, I can't upload diagnostics from any of the computers unfortunately.


The Dell 5530 does not come with an Ethernet adapter. Instead it comes with a USB3 dongle that connects into the Thunderbolt port. I'll mention right up front that for this problem, I've also attempted to use a separate USB-to-Ethernet adapter in the USB port and got the exact same problem (on all 3 computers). Therefore I've written off the problem existing in the dongles or adapters themselves and the USB-to-Ethernet adapters work fine on several other laptops I have on the domain.


Once added to the domain, the adapter will work for a very short amount of time and then the following messages will pop-up in the system log:

-The Windows Connection Manager service terminated unexpectedly. It has done the 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 120000 milliseconds: restart the service (Event ID 7031). It will do this 3X and then:

-Connectivity state in standby: Disconnected, Reason: NIC compliance. And then:

-Connectivity state in standby: Connected, Reason: None.


Among the things I've done:


-Re-imaged the laptops several times both from WDS and from DVD.

-Tweaked/changed nearly every setting in the bios dealing with network connectivity and/or power.

-Tweaked/changed nearly every setting in the bios dealing with USB/Thunderbolt.

-Ran the command "sc config wcmsvc type=own" since it was killing the audio and biometric services too.

-Changed network cables/drops.

-Updated all the drivers/firmware/bios for every device.

-And a bunch of other stuff I can't recall at the moment.

-Run the network and connection troubleshooters. They just fail outright with no specific reason given.

-Set the Windows Connection Manager Service to *always* restart after fail (but this doesn't seem to change anything).

-Tweaked all of the setting in the driver configuration to no avail, but that wouldn't explain the domain/non-domain issue anyhow.


It appears to me that if I had to guess it would all point towards a domain security policy, but none that appear obvious to me, especially since every other computer on the network works just fine. I should add that the network is INFOSEC STIG-complaint, so none of the security policies and/or GPOs can be changed with out cause and documentation. We do run McAfee Host-Based Security System, but all this troubleshooting was done without it or anti-virus installed on the clients.


I think I've lost a full head of hair over this the last week. If anyone has ANY ideas, I would be greatly appreciative.


Thanks for listening.

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