BSOD VxD error

hi, first time i have ever used a forum, so if i make any mistakes please let me know!!

first of all thank you for any post's i get in reply!!

Currently running two computers over home network for playing games and sharing a broadband dsl connection through a NTL set top box.

i keep geting BSOD on one of the machines every time i either transfer a large file from one machine to another or attempt to download a big file from the net ie. a game demo
This is what the BSOD says:

An exception OE has occured at 0028:C29C3F89 in VxD FA31xND5 (01) + 00000389.
This was called from 0028:C001D218 in VxD NDIS(01)+0005B30.
May be possible to continue normally etc.

Which, of course, it isn't. The computer continues to be usable except that i can't access the other machine or the internet.

I am using Netgear FA311 NIC's in both machines which are connected to a belkin router (4 port cable/dsl gateway).

Both machines are running winME. The problem machine has had its Bios updated to the newest version. All the drivers (graphics, network card, sound, logitech mouse) upgraded to the newest versions on a 'try one at a time' basis but to no avail. I have eliminated overheating as the machine side hasn't been on since the day i built it and it sits in a nice cool ventilated attic. I have tried swapping the pci slot the card is plugged into. Nope.
Tried swapping the cards over in the machines. card works fine in other machine (in fact using it now!) i have searched the micosoft knowledge base and found several references to 0028:C001D218 but nothing specific to my problem.

Looked at Netgears site for this problem and found nothing except a registry check settings entry. which i did and found that they were correct. Checked all the N/g's i usally have a look at and found several entries relating to netgear issues. nothing relly helpful.

This is really annoying me as it is the first time i have been stumped by a computer based problem in a long time and while i quite enjoy problem solving, it is getting beyond a joke.

So over to you guys out there. If there is any specific info you need and if someone can give me any tips please let me know. they will all be gratefully received.

mikeybee (Grumpy Network User!)

 

Welcome to TSG!!!

Looks like your NIC card driver or the card itself is the problem (VxD FA31xND5 )
I would check to see if it is sharing an IRQ with another device such as sound or video, If it will allow you to change it try that. If not, I would remove the NIC in control panel, uninstall the driver then remove the card. Reboot, shut down and reinstall. You may also want to try the card from the other machine in case the card itself is flakey.

Let us know

 

One thing you might try is remove your networking and NIC altogether. Then reboot and reinstall again. This will have Windows reload all the files again. Perhaps one just got corrupted.

If this doesn't work, for the price of network cards, you might tryi one from a different manufactuer.

I've also had sporadic problems with NetGear's 311 card, especially with Win98 and this was the easiest thing to get the computer working again.

 

Thanks gents! (Bob and Rugrat)

now for the bad news. i have already tried removing the card, swapping slots, reinstalling and swapping it with the card from the other machine. it doesn't seem to be the card that is a fault. I also formatted my HD and put a clean copy of winME with no other devices in the system. the only other thing that is on the same IRQ is 'ACPI irq holder for pci irqi steering' and to be brutally honest i have no idea what that means!! but it doesn't seem to affect the other machine which quite happily spends 24 hours a day online.

cheers

mikeybee (GNU)

 

How much memory in the problem machine?

 

hi,

there is currently 289(ish)megs of the black stuff in the machine. It is all fully functional as it has been tried out in other 'puters.

Quickie for you. in the 'ok' machine there is an option in the network properties relating to power managementof the NIC. i seem to have this on the ok machine but not on the 'problem' machine. any ideas?

thanks in advance

 

oops, i meant to say in the device manger>network adapter>properties>power management.

sorry!

i think that it is starting to get to me

 

Plenty of memory, sounds like you have done everything I can suggest. You may want to click report at the top of this post and ask a moderator to move this to networking. Maybe someone over there has seen this.
I checked my NIC properties, nothing to do with power management there. Never saw that one before.

Good Luck

 

i think that i may have solved the problem!!!!


i have limited the the Nic transfer speed from 100baset full duplex down to the lower 10baset speed. Doesn't affect the games connection but has made the connection reliable (so far). have downloaded 100MB file off kazaa with no BSOD and transfered over a gigabyte in data from one machine to the next with no problems.

hopefully fixed.

thanks for your help!!

mikeybee (happier network user!)