Hi guys, I'm at my rags end here with an issue with the above mentioned adapter so thought I'd see if anyone here might have some advice...
Last week I finish putting together my new build PC, which is running Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit). I installed a new usb wireless adapter from Belkin and it worked perfectly all week - I used the PC lots, surfed the web, gamed online, made some fairly hefty downloads - the device functioned without an issue.
Two days ago I turned on the PC, windows loads up fine, but none of my USB devices functioned. So I reboot the PC, this time the initial Windows loading screen comes up and then the screen goes blank and nothing happens. I left it for about 10-15mins with no change before hitting the reset bottom. Same thing happens again, and again after that. Load screen comes up and then just a blank screen (the graphics card is outputting signal, but its just a blank screen). Eventually I think to myself that something funny was going on with the USB stuff when the first problem occured, so I try unplugging all the USB devices and the system boots fine. After various amounts of fiddling and rebooting several times I eventually narrow the problem down to the wireless USB adapter.
My intial thought was that it could be hardware fault, so I tested the adapter on my old XP machine and it works fine. Then I wonder if its the USB socket on the mobo, but the same fault occurs on every socket on the PC, and all of the sockets function fine with my other USB devices. So doesn't appear to be a hardware problem.
My next thought is that it might be a problem with the drivers for the adapter, so I uninstalled it and then reinstalled it off the disc. When I run the installation file it gets halfway through and then seems to hang for a very long time (several minutes, whereas the whole install took about 30 seconds on the XP machine) after which it proceeds and tells me the installation has been successful and "do you want to restart the computer?" I select to restart and the computer starts shutting down, then when it gets to the "windows is shutting down" screen it hangs again for several minutes before shutting down and restarting. It restarts, gets past the initial Windows loading screen and then I get a blank screen again. This time it does eventually proceed to load windows after about 5 minutes. Once in windows I try to connect to the internet, but it can't find any connections (it finds about 8 when plugged into the XP machine less than a metre away). If I run the Windows diagnostic on my network connections it resets the adapter, but still no luck.
If I look at the adapter in the device manager windows thinks the driver is up to date and that the device is working properly. But it clearly isn't.
I've tried reinstalling the drivers I don't know how many times. I've got more recent drivers off the Belkin website, but get the same results. I contacted the Belkin support people, who advised me to run the installation package in Vista compatability mode, but this gives me the same result. Then they suggested I download the chipset drivers from Realtek and try installing those. This has made things even worse. After running the installation program it claims to have finished successfully. The computer hangs during shutdown. It then froze at the usual point when it restarted, but did not recover. Eventually I removed the adapter from the USB slot and windows finished loading, but the graphics were all funny (there were weird green dots all over the screen). So I rebooted pretty sharpish. Next time round windows loads fine without the device in. I stick it in after Windows has loaded and a quick check of the device manager confirms that Windows has recognised it and thinks it is functioning correctly and has the right drivers, but still no connectivity. So I decide to uninstall and try again, but now the drivers won't uninstall. The uninstall window comes up but never finishes. I've tried running it several times, but get the same result each time. It's been running in the background for about half an hour now and doesn't appear to have made any progress.
I'm really at my whits end with this now. I've been installing and uninstalling the device for days to no avail and am running out of ideas as to what to do. The Belkin support guys seem to know less about computers than me and have no helpful suggestions. Can anyone offer any advise? I find it particularly odd that the device has such odd effects on windows start up and shut down, I don't understand how it could have that effect :/
Thanks for any help
Last week I finish putting together my new build PC, which is running Windows 7 Ultimate (64bit). I installed a new usb wireless adapter from Belkin and it worked perfectly all week - I used the PC lots, surfed the web, gamed online, made some fairly hefty downloads - the device functioned without an issue.
Two days ago I turned on the PC, windows loads up fine, but none of my USB devices functioned. So I reboot the PC, this time the initial Windows loading screen comes up and then the screen goes blank and nothing happens. I left it for about 10-15mins with no change before hitting the reset bottom. Same thing happens again, and again after that. Load screen comes up and then just a blank screen (the graphics card is outputting signal, but its just a blank screen). Eventually I think to myself that something funny was going on with the USB stuff when the first problem occured, so I try unplugging all the USB devices and the system boots fine. After various amounts of fiddling and rebooting several times I eventually narrow the problem down to the wireless USB adapter.
My intial thought was that it could be hardware fault, so I tested the adapter on my old XP machine and it works fine. Then I wonder if its the USB socket on the mobo, but the same fault occurs on every socket on the PC, and all of the sockets function fine with my other USB devices. So doesn't appear to be a hardware problem.
My next thought is that it might be a problem with the drivers for the adapter, so I uninstalled it and then reinstalled it off the disc. When I run the installation file it gets halfway through and then seems to hang for a very long time (several minutes, whereas the whole install took about 30 seconds on the XP machine) after which it proceeds and tells me the installation has been successful and "do you want to restart the computer?" I select to restart and the computer starts shutting down, then when it gets to the "windows is shutting down" screen it hangs again for several minutes before shutting down and restarting. It restarts, gets past the initial Windows loading screen and then I get a blank screen again. This time it does eventually proceed to load windows after about 5 minutes. Once in windows I try to connect to the internet, but it can't find any connections (it finds about 8 when plugged into the XP machine less than a metre away). If I run the Windows diagnostic on my network connections it resets the adapter, but still no luck.
If I look at the adapter in the device manager windows thinks the driver is up to date and that the device is working properly. But it clearly isn't.
I've tried reinstalling the drivers I don't know how many times. I've got more recent drivers off the Belkin website, but get the same results. I contacted the Belkin support people, who advised me to run the installation package in Vista compatability mode, but this gives me the same result. Then they suggested I download the chipset drivers from Realtek and try installing those. This has made things even worse. After running the installation program it claims to have finished successfully. The computer hangs during shutdown. It then froze at the usual point when it restarted, but did not recover. Eventually I removed the adapter from the USB slot and windows finished loading, but the graphics were all funny (there were weird green dots all over the screen). So I rebooted pretty sharpish. Next time round windows loads fine without the device in. I stick it in after Windows has loaded and a quick check of the device manager confirms that Windows has recognised it and thinks it is functioning correctly and has the right drivers, but still no connectivity. So I decide to uninstall and try again, but now the drivers won't uninstall. The uninstall window comes up but never finishes. I've tried running it several times, but get the same result each time. It's been running in the background for about half an hour now and doesn't appear to have made any progress.
I'm really at my whits end with this now. I've been installing and uninstalling the device for days to no avail and am running out of ideas as to what to do. The Belkin support guys seem to know less about computers than me and have no helpful suggestions. Can anyone offer any advise? I find it particularly odd that the device has such odd effects on windows start up and shut down, I don't understand how it could have that effect :/
Thanks for any help