Well, thanks for your input but I am sad to say that this did not work. I assume that you are talking about “Settings>Troubleshooting>Load Avast services only after loading other services”. This was already checked to be enabled.

Just to try it, I disabled that feature, put the computer to sleep, and when I woke it back up the same problem persists. I have come up with my own little work around for this. I created a shortcut to the NIC card and placed it on the desktop so that I can easily disable/enable it to get it to work again. This is how I have been able to put up with it for so long. But it has recently started to cause problems with my Arris cable modem and my Linksys router. Whenever I disable and enable it it is starting to jam up the packets between the two devices and I end up having to reset the modem / router / and NIC card. Huge problem!