Equipment Support > Hardware By Brand > Netgear > WG311 Freezing XP Problem

reply to Scoobs72

Re: WG311 Freezing XP Problem

I've spent ages trying to sort my WG311 card out. To no avail. I only have one problem with it. The computer either freezes temporarily or completely locks up only while playing a media file. Music or Video generally in WMP. Disabling the card removes the problem. Netgear have been useless. This freezing also causes other problems becuase it corrupts part of my hard disk everytime it occurs. Therefore, when you reboot, checkdisk runs and recovers various files. Orginally I thought it was a hard disk problem, until I replaced it and the same thing occured straight away after the computer locked up. I think the only way to resolve it is buy a different make card unless anyone else has any suggestions.

FOR INFO.

XPPro Service Pack 2
XP2200+
with MSI KT6 Delta Motherboard
M Audio Delta Soundcard (also tried with 2 other manufacturers in case of conflict with sound device)

Is this a WG311v1 or WG311v2 ? - they're completely different beasts. Mine would lock up under high disk load. That included things like playing media files, but also general use. If it's a v1 you've got then there ain't no cure, and Netgear aren't going to fix it. Send it back if you can and get something that's not based on an Atheros chipset.

Yes its a v1 type. Thanks for your help Scoobs.

reply to Scoobs72
so woudl getting a new motherboard [non via] on win XP solve my problem? i have a conflict wiht it and my sounblaster card.. and this is about pushing me over to a new motherboard.

reply to Scoobs72
I just saw this post in the VIA forums and thought I'd pass it along, I hope it works! I will post my results.

»forums.viaarena.com/messageview.···id=43504

Hi people..

I work for a company that decided to move to wlan and I want to share the information I have gathered these last couple of days.

1. The Problem.

The older VIA chipsets (KT266, KT333 and KT400) have problems with WLAN cards based on certain Atheron chipsets.
Atheron is used on most WLAN cards on the market, so the problem is not connected to any certain WLAN provider.

The problem might also be in the VIA VT8235 chip that most if not all of the problem motherboards have mounted.

There are other older chipsets that I have heard have the same problems. some old BX chipsets behave the same way.
But these seem to all have been fixed after the WLAN card recieves a non shared IRQ.

With this information we can conclude that VIA is the problem here.
There is also a chance that certain Atheron chipsets have problems, but this is probably not the case as the Atheron cards work just fine if used with other chipsets.

2. The Solution.

VIA KT333 & KT266

Just in case you should :
1) Use the Atheron drivers and tool instead of the ones provided with the card.
2) Make sure the card is not sharing IRQ and turn off built in LAN/SOUND or other functions you are not using.
3) Windows Updates
4) Update BIOS
5) Update the VIA 4in1 drivers

If all of the above steps fail you have only one solution.
Turn OFF DMA mode for your harddrives. This will 100% work, but it will slow down HD access.

VIA KT400 and any newer cards with lag problems.

You could do step 1-5 from the KT333 instruction above, but for me it worked with just changing to the Atheron drivers.

The Atheron drivers will make the signal stronger and more stable, but make sure to get the newest version.
If I remember correct the current version is 3.3.0.150 and the current tool version is 3.1.3.5

Well thats all I can think of atm.

Take care and send me a mail if you have any questions.
/claudio.medina@liquidmousetrap.com

reply to mattmmm
It might solve the problem, but it would be easier just to change the card. The USR805416 worked fine for me, which is the same chipset used in the DLink DWL-G520+ and the WG311v2.

Re: the suggestions in Lazy8's posting....I did all of these. Turning off DMA mode solved the problem but the PC was way too slow. Ensuring IRQ wasn't shared didn't help, nor did turning off the on-board LAN.

reply to lazy8
Turning off UDMA won't always work (didn't work for my 311t). My stress test (just a big Windows networking file copy) would hang anyway. The only thing that worked for me was to use a PCI video card. I tried all of the 5 suggestions first.

reply to Scoobs72
This problem stumped me for months and I was getting nowhere, but now my computer has been stable for ages and I can keep my machine on for weeks on end.

I cannot guarantee this will work for you, but it's worth a try.

First of all you must NOT install SP1. For some reason one of the updates causes you to go back to the original freezing problem, so just stick with regular XP (obviously you will need a good AV and firewall to make sure you're not a target for any exploits - or just use Firefox instead of IE ). I'm also now assuming that you've uninstalled your WG311 and drivers, or are starting from scratch.

Next, update the Via 4-in-1 drivers to the latest version:
»www.viaarena.com/?PageID=403

Now (this is the crucial bit I think), you need to download the 'PCI Latency patch for VIA chipsets' from here (beta version 0.20 is ok):
»www.georgebreese.com/net/software/#PCI
direct link: »www.georgebreese.com/net/softwar···ta21.exe

OK, now you must install the latest (1.3) drivers from the Netgear site:
»kbserver.netgear.com/products_au···G311.asp

Right, I also left it configured so Windows controls my wireless connection as opposed to the Netgear utility. With a bit of luck this should work for at least some of you, I can't believe I wasted 6-7 months of annoying random freeze-ups, but everything is fine now.

Really hope this helps...

Dal.

I have the same problem with a WG311T in a 'MiniQ' (650DF motherboard - SiS 651 chipset) running winXP.

Randomly reboots the system without warning. Turning off the WG311T eliviates the issue.

Tried using AGP video card as opposed to the onboard one - no luck. Installed latest drivers for motherboard, WG311T, onboard network card, video card, etc - no luck.

Contacted Netgear - no luck.

There seem to be a lot of different issues now occupying this thread which hopefully I can summarise for reference....

- Scenario 1 - The original problem I posted was whereby a WG311 v1 (Atheros chipset) caused the whole PC to lockup at random intervals. The PC would freeze (it wouldn't reboot) and the mouse and keyboard would also lock. A reset of the PC is required to reboot it.

- Scenario 2 - A problem also appears to exist with randon freezes which don't lock up the PC completely. These temporary freezes last for about a second and occur every minute or so - this appears to be due to having the WZC service enabled, or using older Netgear drivers instead of the latest Atheros ones

Scenario 3 - the PC won't even boot up. Possibly a PCI2.2 compatability issue

Scenario 4 - PC just reboots itself whenever it feels like it

Any others???

reply to Scoobs72
Hi,

You all need serious help!

Ingredient
Wireless pci card
Via KM400 Chipset based

Recipe
1.) First remove the wireless pci card from the machine.
2.) Then go into the Bios and put all the IRQ resources
to "Reserved".
3.) Start the machine and when Windows is done loading all
that crap, shutdown again!
4.) Put the wireless pci card back into the machine and
start the machine.

Well???? Does it taste good?

reply to Scoobs72
hey guys. long time reader; first time poster. i had the same problems as scenario 2. i'm running XP, my WZC was disabled and i used the netgear driver that came with the card. anyway, i uninstalled the drivers and the bullshit utility. restarted my computer and when the "new hardware detected" bubble came up, just pointed it to the CD. it hasn't lagged since. sounds like a weird fix but it seems to work. maybe the install program on the cd is corrupt? i'm not sure if i should try installing the utility again. i hope this helps someone...

reply to Scoobs72
OK. I am not sure what has happened now.

My card was working, but began freezin more and more often with the netgear drivers. While this was happening i would have to pull the card out to unlock my pc so i could restart.

Sometimes the card would not get recognized when i put it back in. In some cases it would find it and go into the "New Hardware Found Wizard". Which never works. I can never find the proper drivers to install.

In other cases it will actually connect and run properly (until it freezes again)

And sometimes it would not recognize and i would have to remove and re-insert the card several times (with varying pressure) to get it found.

And lasty sometimes it was not found at all, and i would restart and try until it did.

NOW, I get none of the above.

I got Netgear to send me a replacement card, and it still doesn't recognize, Is my slot shot?

Thanks.
Greg

reply to biggsLPhiE
biggsLPhiE, ditch the Netgear utility and drivers and install the Atheros ones. Look for them in the DLink forum. They'll give you a much stronger signal and the utility is miles better

alright, after restarting my computer like 3 times, it started stalling again. i'll try the atheros driver. thanks for the tip scoobs

Hi. I am experiencing the same problem as described here only with a Linksys WUSB54G wireless-g usb adapter and FIC K8-800T motherboard (which has VIA VT8237 chipset).

Every so often my mouse will stop tracking properly then Windows will totally lock up requiring a hard reboot. I have the latest (and only) bios for my mobo, the latest via drivers, the latest linksys driver, and am using Windows XP SP2 to manage my connection. I've tried installing the via PCI latency patch. It seems to have helped somewhat. Now my lockups are every few hours instead of minutes, but they still persist.

I have tried clean installs of Windows 2000, Windows XP with no service pack, and WinXP w/ SP2. I have tried plugging the adapter in different usb ports. In all cases, the problem is remains the same.

Seeing as I have a usb and not pci wireless adapter, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could try to fix this without replacing hardware?

I believe the Linksys WUSB54G uses a PrismGT chipset, not Atheros. Can anyone confirm?

Is there perhaps an updated Intersil Singlesource driver for PrismGT based adapters? I have looked around online but have been unable to find a generic driver.

Suggest you post this in the Linksys forum

Ok, but the problem is with the adapter chipset (PrismGT) and motherboard chipset (VT8237) which are common to Netgear/Linksys and VIA based motherboards of many generations.