Vista SP1 Killed My Wife's Laptop

By Gerowen
in Smart Home, Network & Security

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Grand Master

Gerowen

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Here's my story. I run Linux on my personal laptop, and I have a server which also runs Linux and hosts a web-based file server, an ssh server, an ftp server, a Windows shared drive and it also acts as a print server. ANYWAY, my wife runs Windows Vista on her laptop because that's what came with it and she hasn't had any issues with it. Well day before yesterday she installed the SP1 udpate. She hadn't installed it yet and I heard that it solved a lot of issues with file transfer speeds and it had a few security fixes. Well after installing SP1 her wireless is iffy at best. Half the time it doesn't even show our wireless network as available, all it shows is one network named "Motorola" which I'm guessing belongs to one of my neighbors. The other dozen or so networks that normally show up within range aren't detected. The other half the time it doesn't detect "any" wireless networks. Going to the "Windows Mobility Center" with the wireless network list open and turning the wireless off and back on a few times will occasionally make our network appear and it will connect. When she "is" connected, file transfers are very slow and often fail. She just tried to publish some audio books to the shared folder as a backup and it got about halfway through the second of about 6 files and her connectivity thing said "Local Only" instead of the normal "Local and Internet" and it then said that the file was not available on her computer. All of her connectivity disappeared. The whole time this is going on, I'm browsing the internet and watching youtube videos and everything on my Linux computer, and even browsing the files on the server with no issues whatsoever, so I know that it is an issue specific to the Windows Vista SP1 on her computer.

My question is, should I just uninstall the SP1, or is this a known issue that can be fixed? I'd like to fix it and leave the SP1 installed because I don't like not having security fixes and updates installed on anything.

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https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/647727-vista-sp1-killed-my-wifes-laptop/
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Grand Master

Max Veteran

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Go to the manufacturers website and get the latest drivers for it. I found with some Intel wireless bits that it was exactly like you decribed until I did the driver.

EDIT: The preview to this thread said "Vista SP1 Killed My Wife" :p

Edited by Max
Grand Master

Gerowen

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Well the Windows Device Manager says it's all up to date, but I'm browsing the Atheros website which is a little confusing, it's an Atheros AR5007EG wireless card on a 32 bit Windows Vista Home Premium system if anybody has the time and manages to find it before I do.

Grand Master

gigapixels Veteran

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Wow, there are only 3 downloads available for that system on Toshiba's website. I've never seen that before :o

A quick search brought up the Czech Atheros website: http://www.atheros.cz/download.php?atheros...EG&system=3

The top download should do it for you. By the way, the download automatically starts after 5 seconds, but it doesn't tell you that, so it seems like you get to a dead-end page. Just FYI :)

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jesseinsf

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sometimes the Laptop manufacturer does not have the latest drivers, so what you would want to do is to find out what the Manufacturer and model number is to your Network adapter. Then goto their website and download the latest Vista drivers and install them. good luck :)

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Grand Master

Gerowen

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Yep I tried that download from the Czech website, it came up when I googled the card, the Device Manager says the driver I have is newer than the one I downloaded from there.

Edit: Alright, after manually checking, the driver from the Czech website is actually newer, so I'm going to uninstall it altogether and then install it from that driver and see how it behaves.

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jesseinsf

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Yep I tried that download from the Czech website, it came up when I googled the card, the Device Manager says the driver I have is newer than the one I downloaded from there.

Edit: Alright, after manually checking, the driver from the Czech website is actually newer, so I'm going to uninstall it altogether and then install it from that driver and see how it behaves.

What's the network adapter's name and model number?

Grand Master

Gerowen

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I just successfully updated it using that driver from the Czech website to version 7.4. something.

If you're still curious though in case this doesn't fix the issue it's an Atheros AR5007EG.

Grand Master

Gerowen

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"This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device."

That's the result of the newer driver version.

Edit: I rolled it back to the original 7.2.x driver version that it shipped with. It was using a version 7.3.x when it was having issues, it appears to be working now, if the problem starts up again though I'll post back with an update.

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