Windows 7: BSOD: Random occurences. nwifi.sys. | netio.sys | bad pool caller...

So I've been having BSOD's frequently for the past few days and I've tried to do a little of my own investigating into the problem. My research led me to believe these were driver issues, particularly with my wifi (a wireless connection to router via Netgear WN111 adapter).

I uninstalled the device completely from my machine and cleaned out the registry files. I rebooted and reinstalled using updated drivers from the netgear site. The BSOD's still occured. The CD driver & software that the adapter came has worked perfectly well for years on Windows 7 and previously Vista. So I went back to those and still the problem continues.

I updated my creative soundblaster driver through the same methods, using unstall from device manager and then cleaning out remaining drivers using Driver Sweeper. I then installed the new drivers from the Creative website.

Same with my nVidia GEforce GTX 260 Card.

Still no cure.

So far the headers have included:

- netio.sys
- nwifi.sys
- bad_pool_caller
- IRQL_not_less_or_equal

I'm hoping one of you kind genius' would take some time to analyse my minidumps of today. I've uploaded two in one zip file.

Failing that, I'll obviously take it upon myself to try and diagnose them further, I'm just hoping someone here who is far more knowledgeable about dmp files can clear things up with a definitive direction of solution.

Thanks guys.

your first dump points to your wireless adapter driver as the problem:

You can check for updates to the driver on netgear's page:

Computer Networking Products & Equipment From NETGEAR®

The second however points to failing hardware I tryed to access the error record but for some reason it wasnt allowing me to so i can give you very little information on what may have caused it

See this thread for more help with the stop 0x124:

Stop 0x124 - what it means and what to try

Ah see, as I said before I had a feeling it was the wireless adapter but I've tried the updated drivers from Netgears website and they didn't solve the problem.

Thank you for the quick reply and the further information. Every piece of input helps

I'll take a look at that link you listed now. I really hope it's not failing hardware

It always is a very sad thing to have you hardware fail.

Hmmmm, I just had a 'Doh!' moment.

Wireless adapter driver problems + possible hardware failure problems...... could it possibly be that the Network Adapter has had it's day and is now dying. It does get fairly hot sometimes but it's been like that for as long as I can remember.

I have a different one lying around somewhere so hopefully if I find that I guess I could just do the obvious thing and try that one.

It is entirely possible that your wifi adapter is the failing hardware the best way to test would be to swap it out.

So after leaving my PC on for the whole day today, while I went to work, idle but for downloading, It appears the problem may be resolved. I say may, because we all know how our Pc's can give us false hope.

However, it has definitely not BSOD'd the entire day. So I'm starting to lean towards firm confirmation that switching out the external wireless adapter has solved the issue.

I'll return in a couple more days to mark this as solved.

Thanks for your help Dsprague!

Glad we could help you out and keep us posted.

Well it's been 2 more days with more testing (well when I say testing I just mean general usage as before) and still not a single BSOD. I think at this point it's safe to assume the problem is resolved and I'm now marking this as solved.

Thanks again for your help Dsprague