Network disconnects whenever system is idle

[DrAzzy]

I am having a very frustrating problem with my Windows 7 laptop (Dell Latitude E6400)

It is set to turn off the display after 10 minutes to save power (as per default settings), and have modified the Balanced powerplan:

Sleep: When plugged in: Never
Turn off hard disk after: When plugged in: Never
USB Selective Suspend: When plugged in: Disabled
PCI Express Link State Power Management: When plugged in: Off

Additionally, in device manager, i've unchecked the "Allow the comptuer to turn off this device to save power"

And yet, a few seconds after the screen gets turned off, network activity gets suspended, about 90-95% of the time. Interestingly enough, every night, at midnight, it apparently revives network access long enough for Outlook to get new messages - in the morning, it will show that it last updated at like 12:01 AM.

Open Chrome windows on pages that automatically reload display "Network I/O suspended".

The VPN disconnects, my email stops updating (until midnight, of course), every remote desktop connection I have open gets broken, etc. This is intensely frustrating, as I work on multiple machines, and it significantly reduces my productivity.

Where is the setting I've missed? It's got to be possible to turn off the screen without turning off the network!

Thanks in advance.

 

[Nibiru2012]

In the Device Manager go to the Network Adapter and open it up. Go to Power Management and uncheck the box stating "turn off device to save power'.

That should do the trick for you.

 

[DrAzzy]

I have already unchecked that.