Lenovo wi-fi driver problem

[crates (Eric Johnson)]

After between 1 and 8 hours of use, my Lenovo X60s gives me a BSOD sourced to
athr.sys, the driver for my Atheros wi-fi AP. Event viewer gives fault bucket
0xD1_athr+82f9f ... Anyone seen this? I can't roll the driver back, although
I can probably delete the driver and install an older one which could be
found on the Lenovo site. But every month or two, Windows Update does its
thing and causes the new driver to reappear, with resulting BSODs. Bright
ideas welcome. (I can't trace any particular activity to causing the BSOD--it
can happen without my having touched the computer; but it happens only if the
wi-fi AP is turned on, i.e. if I turn it off and stick with my 802.3 port,
the BSOD won't occur.)

 

[David B.]

The obvious solution would be to deny the driver Windows Update is trying to
feed you, never ever install drivers from Windows Update, get them from the
hardware/PC mfg.

 

[crates (Eric Johnson)]

Thanks, David. Obviously. Except that this problem driver isn't actually
coming from MS (it's not in any of the Windows Updates)--it's being loaded as
a side-effect of the MS Updates (go figure). Sure, I can disable MS automatic
updates, and lose the benefit of my software being kept up-to-date, but
that's a big price to pay. Anyway. No silver bullet, I guess.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Eric.

-it's being loaded as
a side-effect of the MS Updates (go figure).

Uh... What does that mean?

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)

 

[DL]

If the driver isn't being supplied by MS Update who is it coming from?
Check your MS Update history.
MS Update can be set to ignore driver updates and only install critical
updates.

 

[David B.]

This makes no sense, it's either coming from MS update or it's not, where do
you see the update when it tries to install?

 

[Wandering]

Just set Vista Updater to show you the list of updates available, and pick
the ones you want to stall. DO NOT let it install whatever it wants
automatically. You will lose no functionality, and you just uncheck the
"system" drivers it wants to send you. then when you have the time, go the
the device manufacturers website and download the drivers there. If you
continue to let Vista update automatically, it is only a matter of time till
something on your machine, like video or sound breaks, and you end up having
to roll back and download elsewhere in any event. It's pretty hard to
operate your machine with a black screen.

Good luck.