DRIVER_IRQL_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL bcmwl5.sys BSOD

[Arvinder]

This is more of a solution for bcmwl5.sys problems than a question…
thought it might be useful for anyone who Googled this. There was a
previous thread (http://groups.google.com/[email protected])
on this that didn't really have a resolution. I was able to fix the
bcmwl5.sys BSOD I was getting with my Buffalo Tech WLI-CB-G54S laptop
card. It all stems from the driver used for the Broadcom chipset that
Buffalo (along with Linksys, HP and Belkin and others are using for
their 54g+ cards). Seems that even the latest drivers offered by
Buffalo were having problems. These drivers used version 3.50.21.10
(or lessor) of bcmwl5.sys (located in c:\windows\system32\drivers)
dated 05/19/04 with size 294kb. I looked around for more recent
versions of this file. The Linksys version is 3.50.21.11 and is
strangely dated as 02/19/04 (how can .11 be dated before .10?). On the
HP site (do a search for zt3280us drivers) I found version 3.70.17.00
dated 08/04/04. This is probably the most recent version of the
Broadcom driver. I simply extracted the HP driver file, and copied
only the bcmwl5.sys file to c:\windows\system32\drivers, overwriting
the existing one. I've had no problems since. Why other card makers
haven't updated to this version is beyond me… would surely save us all
a lot of hassle.

 

[Lance]

Thanks for the info. I don't have the BSOD problem, but the 3.70.17.00
driver from HP appears to have stabilized my wireless connection on two
computers (2 Linksys WMP54GS PCI cards with a Linksys WRT54GS router).

The signal strength is weak to begin with (low or very low) and the
wireless computers kept changing speeds from 1-2 Mpbs up to 54 Mbps and
everything inbetween or just dropping and picking up the connection.

After replacing the 3.50.21.11 Linksys driver with the 3.70.17.00 HP
driver, but at the connections don't drop anymore and the speed changes
have settled down (maybe one step up or down now and then).

Netstumbler shows more stable signal strength too. Why a new driver
would change that is beyond me.

Lance
*****

Arvinder thought carefully and wrote on 9/25/2004 9:03 PM:

 

[user999991]

Dont know if you two are still monitoring this, but why not use this
most recent driver from Broadcom:

http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/driver-sla.php?driver=570x-XP32

I also have encountered the BSOD with bcmwl5.sys on a Dell Latitude
X400. Dell support's idiotic suggestion: reinstall windows what else??