Netgear wireless adapter USB nightmare

[dez93]

Hi all. Having a rubbish time of it recently Reinstalled winXPpro, got almost everything up & running (except optical drive: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...d=2278312&STARTPAGE=1).
My problem is that my internet connection keeps dying. I think the problem is the USB support, since

- other machines on the router connect fine
- the netgear software finds the network ok
- everything's physically fine and tends to connect when I start up, then the connection fails.

When the connection fails, nothing changes in terms of appearance: the netgear icon still displays a green-screened laptop, and the windows wireless icon shows an empty monitor with the wireless waves coming out of it (screen not lit though).

My semi-solution has been to unplug the adapter and plug it in a different USB slot, however this results in the device not being recognised. When I looked at the driver in place (for unknown device) it was klfltdev.sys, which is a kaspersky interfere-ware driver. Perhaps rashly, I've just gone through and deleted every instance of this driver in the registry, but this hasn't changed anything, since now the unknown device just has no driver.

I don't know enough about USB controllers and hosts to know what to do here. I've searched out intel and gigabyte drivers to solve this but have so far found nothing to fix it, since it keeps happening.

Can anyone suggest anything?


thanks a load in advance.
gigabyte ga965p-ds3 3.3, winXPproSP3

 

[dez93]

have just plugged my external HDD into a different set of USB ports, and it hasn't shown up in windows explorer. could this be due to the PCI driver not recognising the usb ports (or other devices) properly? Might this cure both usb & optical drive problems?

 

[dez93]

seems that that solution would be to make sure I've got the most up-to-date chipset drivers for my mobo, which I do.
Arse.

 

[dez93]

Tried uninstalling netgear software, rebooting, putting the adapter in & letting it install only the driver and not the software, with windows running it. Working ok so far.

 

[dez93]

but then failed. windows wireless icon still present, but offline: can't find any wireless networks. Tried re-searching a number of times but didn't come up. Repaired the connection but no joy. Unplugged from usb port 2 & tried 3: device not recognized. no driver. tried pointing to the driver but it wouldn't use it. Took out and tried port 2 again: "device is malfunctioning" (or similar. don't have error message in front of me).

Rebooted, adapter appears in taskbar but can't find network.

Additionally, when I have my external HDD plugged in @ startup (on a different set of USB ports) windows gets to "windows is starting" message but stops there. Don't know if it's maybe searching through the entirety of the drive before moving onwards, or if it's a related USB problem.

Will try a different USB adapter tonight in case mine IS faulty.

 

[dez93]

working fine so far....
a phrase i'm getting used to!