Windows Bluescreen when disabling second wifi card

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I have freshly installed windows 7 on my laptop. I have two WiFi cards inside (Intel Centrino Advanced N-6200 AGN). Originally the laptop had only one, however I had one additional card on shelf and I decided to add it to laptop, as I don't need it laying on the shelf, and most likely would get lost.

After I freshly installed windows 7, and installed all needed drivers, I tried to check is cable connection working properly, as I had problems with it before format. To do so I decided to turn off both WiFi cards. While first card turned off without any problems, when I tried to disable second WiFi card, windows crashed with BSOD. I don't know would the same happen before format as I never disabled both WiFi cards.

The driver seems to be up to date. Is there any way to fix the BSOD when disabling second WiFi, without taking the card out.

Bug error code: 0x1000007e
Caused by driver: ndis.sys

Note: I personally can live with this problem, as I don't disable card so often, however it would be nice to know that there is no problem if I need to do so.

windows-7
wireless-networking
drivers
bsod
asked on Super User May 15, 2016 by vakus

1 Answer

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The short answer is "don't install two identical WiFi cards". ;)

Either the card's driver or ndis.sys (which is roughly "the glue between all other networking components" in Windows) may have a hidden assumption in it that there is only one WiFi card, so it gets into trouble when you disable it "again". (It does simplify driver design if you assume you will never see more than one of your device.)

Check the Intel site for updated drivers for that card. They often have more recent drivers than you'll get from Windows update. You're not going to get a better ndis.sys unless Microsoft happens to update it, so your only hope is an updated driver for the card.

DO allow Windows to send the crash report and minidump to Microsoft so they can work on it, but frankly this use case is going to be so uncommon (most people don't install more then one mini-PCI WiFi card; most people never open their laptops at all!) that I doubt they'll spend much time on it.

If you want you could post the minidump on a file sharing site and I or someone else here could take a look at it... in fact I wouldn't mind looking at it; it might be an interesting case... but I doubt the answer will be any more helpful than what I have written here.

answered on Super User May 15, 2016 by Jamie Hanrahan

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