I have a network card that functions fine with light use, but quits functioning after heavy use. I replaced it with a brand new one and still have the same issue, also updated drivers. It is a wired D-Link card.

The Internet seems fine for a small amount of web browsing but when I run a bandwidth test it starts out fast and slows quickly until the card completely quits; I have a constant ping of the gateway going while I run this and it starts timing out after a couple seconds into the speed test. The card will stay on and the data light on it still flashes some but I cannot ping the gateway or anything else until the computer is rebooted.

When I boot into safe mode I can browse and run the speed test fine with no problems.

I am guessing that this is probably some program that is loading in regular mode but not safe mode that is causing the issue?

I have very limited software (turned off av and firewall) on the computer but I am thinking that I'll just have to start eliminating start-up programs and see if that helps.

This is on Windows 7 if that makes any difference. Anyone had a similar issue or have any other suggestions/ideas for narrowing down this problem?