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Troubleshooting: USB wireless adapter causes weird behavior after crash

LasastardLasastard Member Posts: 604
in Hardware

Hi guys,

I know, this is not a tech forum per se, but i found that there are a lot of tech-savy people here.

So here goes:

Earlier today my new system crashed during a gaming session. Screen went black wit no warning; system was still under power, but went quiet/crashed. After trying a reboot and being greeted by unfriendly beeping from the internal speakers, I opened the box and checked all the cables. Turned out the PCI-e power coord wiggled loosed, probably when I wrapped up the build and cleaned up the cable-chaos. My bad, I know.

Anyway, pushed it back in and made sure it sat tightly in place. The box would boot fine afterwards, until it got to the login screen - there it crashed (lock up, blue screen). Again, several tries later - after having it narrowed down to network components via safe boot - I realized had it had to do with the wireless USB adapter. Worked fine before the crash, but now would lock up the system as soon as windows tried communicating with it.(System would boot and run just fine without the stick plugged in)

Tried various tings including a clean install, latest drivers etc, but no luck. I updated the bios to the latest version, did another clean install - and lo and behold, no more crashing, but no internet either. WIndows will list the stick under hardware (unknown 11n), and correctly after driver install, but the lights on the stick do not flash and the installation tool from the manufacturer fails to detect the device. I tried running the damn thing on a windows vista laptop and it worked. So whatver this is, it's not the stick - or maybe it is, I really got no clue what the hell is going on.

Other USB devices, including ones that are powered via usb, run fine (although I got a weird message when connecting/installing an external sound device, something about the device using too much bandwith. Worked after installing the board drivers again.

Any suggestions? Could the board be damaged somehow? Would other devices still work in that case? Did the bios upgrade remove hardware compatibility for the stick? If so, why did a clean install etc before not solve the stick issue (remember, it works on another computer just fine). Any bios-settings or other tricks I could try?

 

Cheers,

Lasa

The board is an Asus M4A87TD/USB3

The stick is a DLink DWA-140

Comments

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499

    Are you able to:

    1)  Plug the wireless adapter into a different computer and have the Internet work on the other computer with the adapter but not without it?

    2)  Plug the wireless adpater into a USB slot that works for a different USB device, to make sure the USB slot isn't the problem?

    3)  Run an ethernet cable from the modem to the computer and get a working wired Internet connection to make sure that it isn't something in Windows networking messed up?

    4)  Plug the wireless adapter into both front and back panel USB ports, and also both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, to make sure that you're trying it on whatever ports can deliver the most power?

    I try to avoid wireless stuff when possible.  Wireless means too many things that can go wrong.

  • LasastardLasastard Member Posts: 604

    Originally posted by Quizzical

    Are you able to:

    1)  Plug the wireless adapter into a different computer and have the Internet work on the other computer with the adapter but not without it?

    Yes

    2)  Plug the wireless adpater into a USB slot that works for a different USB device, to make sure the USB slot isn't the problem?

    Tested that, all ports work for e.g. mouse, wacom pad, .. not for the wireless adaper

    3)  Run an ethernet cable from the modem to the computer and get a working wired Internet connection to make sure that it isn't something in Windows networking messed up?

    No cable at hand right now, but I did 2 clean installs since then, so I am guessing software is not the issue (will get a cable tomorrow, if the problem persists)

    4)  Plug the wireless adapter into both front and back panel USB ports, and also both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports, to make sure that you're trying it on whatever ports can deliver the most power?

    Tried all ports, no luck. Although it would occasionally freeze the mouse (not anymore tho, now it just doesnt do anything)

    I try to avoid wireless stuff when possible.  Wireless means too many things that can go wrong.

    Beginning to think the same... Running a cable is not an option, girlfriend would kill me ;) Are those internal wirless PCI-cards any good?

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383

    I doubt your system is damaged, since it seems to work just fine w/o the USB wireless adapter.

    I'm betting the driver for it just got corrupt during one of the crashes. Unfortunately, I don't have a good method for fixing that up. You can try uninstalling and re-installing the driver from the manufacturer, although Windows is really really bad about uninstalling drivers and leaving files laying about. You may need to do a total Windows reinstall to get totally rid of it, unless you can find the files and manually remove them yourself.

    Internal PCI cards are a poor idea in general. I've seen many of them not work well because of interference with other cards inside the computer, or because the antenna cannot be repositioned to a good spot without moving the entire computer around.

    Honestly, when you have to go wireless, I've found the absolute best solution is a Wireless Bridge. They just "bridge" your wireless network to a wired ethernet jack, your computer uses wired ethernet to communicate to it. Any device with wired ethernet can use it to connect to a wireless network, so they are very handy to have about, and often about the same price as some of the more proprietary wireless connections (such as for TV's, older XBox 360's and other gaming consoles, Blu-Ray players, etc). You can even hook a switch up to a wireless bridge, using just one bridge, and plug as many devices into the switch as you want and have them all branch out over the wireless network.

  • LasastardLasastard Member Posts: 604

    Hi guys,

    thanks for the input! After hours of repeatedly re-initializing the system, testing all components etc, I decided to just by the cheapest wireless stick I could find - and lo and behold, the system works and is stable again, including internet access. Funny thing is the stick did not cause a crash on the same box unter linux or under Vista on a laptop. Just not sure what to make of that ;) Digging through forums brought up quite a few horror stories tbh, but in my case the simplest solution seems to have done the trick...

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383

    Glad to hear you got it working.

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