Wireless Netowrk is unreliable and/or Wireless Network locks Computer

Whilst installing a brand new Wireless Netowrk card recently, I experienced issues with the card and frequently the Computer would totally lock. In this state, nothing would work - CTRL-ALT-DEL useless, keyboard lights froze. The only remedy was to pull the power cord, count to 10 and plug it back in again.

After tearing what's left of my hair out, I have come across a solution that, if you are in the same boat could try.

The issue seems to be that modern wireless LAN cards insist on you running an installation.exe file before inserting the card. This installation file installs the LAN card drivers as well as lots of buggy monitoring software.

The solution is to just install the drivers required for the card. However, this is not totally straightforward as they are embedded in the install .exe. Here is what I did, E&OE and only tackle it if you know what you are doing. It is only advice, not gospel and we accept absolutely no liability for any consequences of you following our instructions however caused. If you cannot accept this, then do not follow the instructions. Instructions are written for someone with a bit of nous and reasonably experienced in configuring a PC. If you do not understand them, then you may be a bit out of your depth and it's probably best to call in an expert.

Based upon Windows XP experience:-

1. Assuming that you have a PC with a faulty install, run Control Panel/System and click on 'Hardware' then 'Device manager. Under Netowrk Adaptors select the card in question then right click and select 'properties'. Select the Driver tab and choos 'Driver Details'. Make a note of the filename It will be xxxxxx.sys after the pathname. e.g. for my current Micronet card it is "rtl8185.sys"

2. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the Windows System Directoy and copy the files with the same prefix (e.g. rtl8185.sys, rtl8185.inf) to a temp Directory somewhere.

3. Unistall the device Driver. Power off PC when asked, but leave Network card in. power on. Wait for Windows to find it and attempt an install. When it asks for the Drivers, point it to the temp Directory with the drivers in. Windows should install the drivers and nothing else and it should come up hunky dory.

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