Why does network connection hang in virtual machines while downloading large files?

Issue

• Installed virtio drivers in windows 2008 from virtio-win-1.1.16.iso.
• When downloading a very large file over the network, the virtual machine loses connection to the network.
• The physical host is unaffected and other virtual machines on the same bridge are also unaffected.
• It seems a failure of virtio network driver.
• The old driver installed from virtio-win-1.0.1-52454.iso, was not having this issue.