Pls help! BSOD; athrx.sys appears to be cause

I am about to pull out all of my hair. I rebooted earlier today due to a prompt from mcafee. Upon rebooting, I got the BSOD. I ran the windows debugger and it appears that the cause is athrx.sys but now I am clueless on what to do.

Can anyone help me? My computer is a Dell desktop running 64 bit Windows 7. I am currently working off a laptop because the desktop is in safe mode and won't go online. I know I probably need to update drivers but i don't know how to do this. Sorry - I am rather computer illiterate. I figured out how to download and run the debugger but now I am stuck.

Welcome, basketlacey, to SF.
Did you get the latest driver for your Atheros WLAN card?
Also, please read this:
http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html
Finally, please fill out your system specs.

Is Windows 7 . . .
- 64 bit OEM

- What is the age of system (hardware)? system purchased in March , 2010
- What is the age of OS installation (have you re-installed the OS?) not tried to reinstall this

I haven't updated my drivers (on purpose) because I don't know how (sorry - I am not good at this trouble shooting stuff). It is possible that windows updated them automatically because it seems to do quite a bit of that.

I can update them now but I need help on what to do since I can't go online on the troubled computer. I am currently running malwarebytes and a virus scan to see if that finds anything.

I tried to reply and it disappeared. Let me try this again.

I am running Windows7 64 bit preinstalled on a dell desktop that I purchased in March of this year. I have not tried to reinstall the OS.

I haven't updated the drivers because I am not sure how to do that. It is possible that windows updated them automatically?

I can try and include the other information requested in the posting request but I can't post from the messed up computer and I am concerned about installing anything else on it at this point.

basketlacey said:

I tried to reply and it disappeared. Let me try this again.

I am running Windows7 64 bit preinstalled on a dell desktop that I purchased in March of this year. I have not tried to reinstall the OS.

I haven't updated the drivers because I am not sure how to do that. It is possible that windows updated them automatically?

I can try and include the other information requested in the posting request but I can't post from the messed up computer and I am concerned about installing anything else on it at this point.

Click to expand...

How to Find Drivers
search Google for the name of the driver
- compare the Google results with what's installed on your system to figure out which device/program it belongs to
- visit the web site of the manufacturer of the hardware/program to get the latest drivers (DON'T use Windows Update or the Update driver function of Device Manager).
- if there are difficulties in locating them, post back with questions and someone - will help you search Google for the name of the driver
- compare the Google results with what's installed on your system to figure out which device/program it belongs to
- - if there are difficulties in locating them, post back with questions and someone will try and help you locate the appropriate program.
- The most common drivers are listed on this page: http://www.carrona.org/dvrref.html
- - Driver manufacturer links are on this page: http://www.carrona.org/drvrdown.html
To remove any left over driver remnants, especially from graphics cards, use driver sweeper
www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

athrx.sys
Productname: Driver for Atheros CB42/CB43/MB42/MB43 Network Adapter
Description: Atheros Extensible Wireless LAN device driver
Company: Atheros Communications, Inc.

Well - I didn't find a downloadable update but I removed the driver and the computer booted up in normal mode! Crossing my fingers. I don't use the wireless driver anyway. THANK YOU

The only information that I had is your telling me the cause. If you were correct, it will be resolved.

If you get another, follow posting instructions and download the dump file.