PDA

View Full Version : Computer upgrade and wifi NIC problems


Saab Dastard
19th Mar 2007, 19:48
I thought I would share my pain with anyone prepared to listen!

Having had a dodgy PSU for a while, and a recent disk scare, I thought it was time to upgrade my 7 year old system.

New mobo (Asus M2-V) and CPU (AMD 64 dual-core), new graphics card (Asus / nVidia 256 MB PCI-X job) plus 2GB RAM. And a large new HD.

All arrived, all fitted fine into the case, re-using my CD-RW, DVD drives, and my sound card (I wanted to keep it for the front panel connection), netgear WG311 wifi card and DAB radio card.

Everything powers up, restore win XP (previously ghosted), "repair" said XP, install all new drivers, patches from MS.

All looks perfect - BUT! System starts randomly freezing. NOT BSOD, just total freeze (including audio - a single note, highly annoying!).

So I assume that the cloning has not worked properly, so do a clean install, knowing that I would have to re-install all applications and user settings (not too bad with the settings transfer wizard).

Process completed and it STILL crashes! Even after updating all the drivers for all devices.

Bugger - so run 4 hours of Memtest - no problems.
Run a CPU stress test - no problems. Although I notice the CPU temp going from 25 to 40 C when working hard. But this is still well within limits.

So start removing cards - DAB card out, still crashes. Remove sound blaster and use on-board sound (silver lining is that it seems better than the blaster, although without front panel connection) STILL problems.

Finally I remove the wifi card and enable the onboard RJ45, slinging a cable halfway around the house (why do you think I put a wifi card in the damn thing!).

It hasn't crashed since! Fingers crossed! I've run a burn-in test on the system, stressing all components, including disks and network, and no failures.

So I now have the decision about what the solution to the network problem should be. Spend £20 on a D-link / Buffalo / Belkin 54g network card or start drilling holes in walls!

Answers on a postcard, please!

SD

airborne_artist
19th Mar 2007, 21:17
Blag a USB wifi adaptor off a mate for the evening and try that first, perhaps?

rickity
19th Mar 2007, 21:49
Could just be that both XP's wifi setup utility and the wifi card manufactures setup utility are both running, seem to remember similar symptoms on a laptop. Think I had to uninstall the manufactures uitility to make things work

Rickity

Turn It Off
20th Mar 2007, 08:21
What drivers were yopu using for the wifi card?

Was it a PCI or PCI express wifi card? The PCI express ones (only 2 or 3 on market i think) have compatability issues with Windows XP.

Have you tried a different PCI express card?

TIO

All Ahead Full
20th Mar 2007, 08:55
The first thing to mention here, is that you restored the computer from a ghosted image, was this a AMD 64 machine you ghosted from?

As if not, I'm surpirsed it worked at all.

My recommendation to you, would be to install fresh the new box.

If this is not an alternative, the way forward, would be to get all the appropriate 64bit drivers (important point) for the devices in the machine, and install them one at a time.

The problem,with the wireless adaptor, maybe that there is not a suitable 64 bit driver for the device in question. Some of these devices may work with there 32bit (x86) conterparts, but some will not work at all, hence explaining the system instabilities you had.

Any questions, let me know.

best regards,

Saab Dastard
20th Mar 2007, 15:27
Netgear WG311 PCI wifi card. Not PCI-E, or PCI-X

This is an installation of 32-bit WinXP, so no issue about moving to 64-bit XP.

Ghosted original XP-32 image, restored it to larger HD, then ran windows install, choosing to repair existing installation.

This did, in fact, work perfectly. It is only the fact that the Netgear card drivers are **** that caused problems.

I subsequently did a clean install of WinXP 32, and had exactly the same problem - until I removed the Netgear wifi card.

And no, I didn't have Windows and Netgear wifi managers running.

This isn't a problem looking for solutions - I know what the problem is, and what the solutions are - I just wanted to share the 3 days of pain!

SD

All Ahead Full
20th Mar 2007, 15:33
SD,

Sorry I miss read that one!

It looked at a glance, that is was a x64 problem, my apologies.

all the best,

Phil