[mtndurbin]

It appears that this dropped connection is not random or a loose connection.
Our triage of this indicates that under heavy current draw, like when the
drive motors are running, the 12v power can drop to around 7 volts.

This low voltage condition causes temporary failure of the power converter
supplying power to the dlink. This results in the dlink performing a power on reset.

If you can safely, watch blue lights on the dlink while you drive the robot.
At the point of failure all of the DLINK blue indicators will blink simultaneously.
This will indicate a power on reset has occurred.

What I am now waiting for is the official fix for this.