Network adapter/drivers hang Vista Ult. x64 - how to troubleshoot?

K

Keith R

I'm migrating from multiple hardware machines to a single box with virtual
machines for testing. This is my first need for an x64 OS, and my first
experience with Vista, so please be patient.

I have a Gigabyte MB, 2GB Ram installed (so far, I understand I have to
install updates before installing the rest), 2 WD 500GB SATA2 HDs, 2 Lite-on
SATA DVD drives, and a NetGear wireless adapter card.

The initial install of Vista x64 was flawless, and I didn't have any
problems with the SATA-only setup, or the Lite-on drives (issues that have
come up in other posts I've read). I then connected to the internet (again,
no problems at all) and downloaded and installed all of the updates. Vista
wanted to reboot, so I did.

On reboot (and every subsequent reboot) it hangs at the black bootup screen
with the green progress bar. The bar ususally moves for a few seconds, then
everything locks up. I can boot into safe mode with no networking, but
subsequent attempts at normal bootup all fail.

After many hours of messing with the SATA drives, etc. I finally narrowed it
down to the network adapter(s); when I disable both the motherboard ethernet
adapter and the Netgear wireless card in safe mode, I can boot up in regular
mode. I tried disabling the motherboard adapter (since I don't have a
hardwired connection near this PC anyway) and tried both the Vista and the
Netgear (x64) drivers for the wireless card, but so far I haven't gotten
Vista to boot back up with the wireless enabled and working.

At this point I'm not sure what troubleshooting steps to take to get the
wireless network card working again.Any advice on what to do (what order to
do it in) would be very much appreciated. I'm not going to start building my
virtual machines until I know the Host OS is stable. If the troubleshooting
next steps involves checking any types of logs, please remember that I am
new to Vista, so pointers on where to look for particular log records would
also be helpful.

Many thanks,
Keith
 
D

Dominic Payer

If you have applied the updates from Windows Update and the history shows
that http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777 has been installed, as it
should, you can fit all the memory you have.

Does the motherboard have the latest BIOS and the Netgear card the latest
firmware? And which models of each do you have?

Have you tried uninstalling, not just disabling, the network adapters and
also removing the drivers, so that a complete reinstallation is forced?

Will the Netgear card work in a different slot?
 
T

thecreator

Hi Keith,

If the Ethernet Adapter is built-in into the Gigabyte Motherboard, you
should be able to disable the Ethernet Adapter using the Computer BIOS,
where it doesn't show up in the operating system at all.

As for the Netgear wireless Adapter Card, go back into Safe Mode and
uninstall the Netgear Wireless Adapter Card from Device Manager. Reboot the
computer into normal mode. Do not let Windows automatically reinstall the
drivers, but manually reinstall the drivers for the card, so the drivers are
the original x64 drivers for the card. Reboot and test.

If working launch Windows Update for Vista and look for the Hardware x64
Ethernet Drvers. Hide the hotfix.

Download the Netgear Drivers from the Netgear site, itself. Install
those drivers.
 
K

ker_01

Hi Keith,

If the Ethernet Adapter is built-in into the Gigabyte Motherboard,
you
should be able to disable the Ethernet Adapter using the Computer
BIOS, where it doesn't show up in the operating system at all.

As for the Netgear wireless Adapter Card, go back into Safe Mode
and
uninstall the Netgear Wireless Adapter Card from Device Manager.
Reboot the computer into normal mode. Do not let Windows automatically
reinstall the drivers, but manually reinstall the drivers for the
card, so the drivers are the original x64 drivers for the card. Reboot
and test.

If working launch Windows Update for Vista and look for the
Hardware x64
Ethernet Drvers. Hide the hotfix.

Download the Netgear Drivers from the Netgear site, itself.
Install
those drivers.
Click to expand...

Thank you to Dominic and thecreator for your responses. I apologize for
taking so long to follow up the thread; for some reason my employer only
pays me to work on functional PCs and not the hours I spend trying to
get a non-functional one working... Anyway, the MB is a Gigabyte GA-P35-
DS3P, and the netgear is a WG311T (108 mbps). I went ahead and disabled
the built-in LAN, since I am able to access the bios.

I uninstalled the netgear in the device manager screen, and also tried
to uninstall the other items that showed up after the original install:
WAN Miniport (IP,IPv6,L2TP, PPOE, and PPTP) but while I can disable
these, it won't allow me to uninstall them. If I re-enable them, Vista
reinstalls my netgear immediately. So, disabled them again and
uninstalled the netgear adapter.

I had already downloaded the newest netgear x64 driver for previous
install attempts (wg311t_5_0setup), so I removed the netgear card (no
networks = able to boot Vista in regular mode), used the netgear
installer to completely uninstall the previous installation, used it
again to re-install the drivers, then shut down, inserted the wireless
card (into a different slot), and restarted.

When Vista booted, it popped up a notification window indicating that it
was installing device driver software (didn't give me the chance to pick
the location of the drivers) and the machine locked up- no mouse, not
ctrl-alt-del. Subsequent attempts to boot all get me back to where I
started; locked up at the green progress bar during bootup.

Back into safe mode, I uninstalled the driver and tried to browse to
manually pick the drivers. When prompted, I selected to pick the
location of the drivers and selected the folder that I thought netgear
had installed to (c:\program files (x86)\netgear) but it said it didn't
find any valid drivers. It did find some netgear drivers in c:\windows
\inf\WG311T\ so those are the ones I used- but it still locks up.

So at this point, Vista and my netgear card are functionally
incompatible. Should I start looking at USB wireless adapters, or is it
a deeper problem with Vista (or specific to x64) and networking?

Thanks,
Keith
 
K

ker_01

Dominic-

The board came with the latest bios (v2 board, Award bios F6). The Netgear
driver that I've been struggling with is the latest as well (v5.0, with x64
support). I'm not worried about getting 108 speeds, but I definitely need
to be able to get a connection and still have Vista stable.

I'd welcome any other ideas, otherwise I think I need to start looking for
a new network card.

Many thanks,
Keith
 
T

thecreator

Hi Keith,

Keep with the Drivers from the manufacturer.

I currently have a D-Link DWL-G520 Wireless Adapter Card, where I had
dual-boot between Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista
Ultimate RC2.

I am getting 108MBps throughput in Windows XP, but was only getting 54
MBps in Vista with D-Link Beta Drivers written by Atheros.

Always by new, so you can always return if the new Card doesn't work as
rated.
 

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