New Atheros Ethernet Driver causes Windows to hang on boot

[Tirana]

There is a bit problem with my Vista system. First I was trying to find some solution on it but nothing was found. So I am creating this thread here. My system has Vista in it. It was working fine. After running windows update I found that the system freezes on boot. It does not move ahead at all. The problem was due to the Gigabit Ethernet controller which was affected due to the update. There was a relative update so I thought this would make the system more stable and efficient. But it screwed up everything. I had installed the drivers in safe mode but somehow it is still not working. The machine freezes on normal mode.

[MSVictim52]

You must never trust hardware updates. I had did that for my webcam and it failed to work. From that day I only install the updates which are required. It is very complicate to fix the issue. I had format the system and then re-installed all the same. It worked back when all thing was installed from the scratch. You will need driver update for the same. You have to get rid of the update which is causing the bug or else it will not be fixed. The system will keep on freezing. You can also fix the system by running system restore.

[yanman]

I had fixed the same issue by clearing the bios. But that was not due to update. The system simply lock up on boot. But luckily I was able to get in the safe mode. In Safe mode I had removed unwanted items and simply cleared the cmos. The problem was gone. I am not able to figure out how it appear. Later on I performed bios update and things went back to normal. There was no issue at all. You can also try that. But using system restore is another best option to deal with this kind of issues.

[MSVictim52]

I disabled and then enables LAN card; Didn't work. Reset the bios to defaults; Didn't work.

I don't understand 'clear BIOS'. How to do?

Thanks,

[yanman]

Here's how I fixed the problem on my ASUS P5B-E based system:

0) Booted system into the BIOS and recorded all settings

1) Booted my system - it took about 10 minutes, and seemed to go fastest if I left the cable plugged into my router and then powered off the router once the progress bar stopped moving on the Windows XP splash screen. It should eventually boot no matter what, but mine took about 45 minutes in the worst case.

2) Downloaded and installed the latest Attansic drivers from the ASUS Support site.

3) Downloaded and installed the latest BIOS from the ASUS suport site (I'm not 100% sure this step is necessary, but if you want guaranteed results, go ahead and install it).

4) Powered off the system and cleared RTC RAM per the instructions in the manual (again, not 100% sure this is necessary):
a) With computer off, removed power cord
b) Removed onboard battery
c) Moved jumper cap to pins 2-3 on CLRTC jumper for 10 seconds
d) Moved jumper cap back to pins 1-2
e) Reinstalled battery
f) Plugged in and powered on computer
g) Hit <Del> key or <F1> key on error to enter BIOS setup
h) Reentered settings recorded in step 0

5) System should boot normally now. Make sure to hide the update from Microsoft.

[the-hw-guy]

Hi - got same problem with the Attansic LAN on a Asus P5L-VM1394... In my case, same problem on Vista and XP - on three different systems with this MB. What I found was that the worst case was rebooting - rather than powering off the PC - no more than 4 reboots before extremely slow booting. A little better if powered off - but not much. If system unplugged and allowed to go off completely - i.e. standby LED goes out, the system will generally boot OK - no need to clear CMOS. If the LAN is disabled in the BIOS and the system powered off - the fault stays away.

So - disable the LAN - add a PCI LAN card ( I know - PIA!) and it works OK - no driver seems to work completely flawlessly at present - tried Driver CD and latest from Asus downloads (2.4.7.4 I think)

Hope this helps - took a long time to find this...

[yanman]

As I said in my previous post, I have been running flawlessly for a couple of weeks after the procedure above without having to add a NIC or permanently disable the on board adapter.

Here's the version of the driver I am running per Device Manager in Windows XP SP2:
Driver Provider: Attansic
Driver Date: 7/28/2006
Driver Version: 1.4.3790.7
Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher