Windows freezes at startup when Wi-Fi Ethernet cable not plugged in

Hello,

My ASUS N61Jq laptop worked fine up until last night when I put it into Hibernation mode, as I frequently do.

I started it up again the morning, and the PC simply froze while the desktop was loading. All the icons were able to load, but the right hand side widgets had not yet appeared, and the Wireless network icon was still searching for a network. I tried rebooting several times but it systematically froze shortly after Windows had started loading.

The same problem occured in Safe Mode with Networking. In fact, the freezing always seemed to happen while the system was searching for an Internet network. I have an Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller that I updated 3 days ago (driver version 2.1.0.12) and an Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (driver version 3.0.8.1). My wi-fi router was on, and my desktop PC was able to connect to it just fine, so the problem didn't seem to come from there.

I tried turning off the Wi-Fi button on the laptop, and all it did was cause the freezing to happen almost immediately after the User Account selection screen appeared.


The computer did work fine in Safe Mode, in which I ran CCleaner, Glary Utilities, performed a full Avast scan and a sfc/SCANNOW: no problem.

I tried disabling various non-system items in the Startup Group: no change.

Looking at the Event Viewer after a given crash, there weren't any error or warning messages logged.

What worked:

I plugged the wi-fi router to the laptop using an Ethernet cable, and Windows was able to run properly this time. It's been plugged in for over an hour, and everything works fine, including the broadband connection. The only thing odd is that the Network icon has a red cross on it, as if it wasn't connected to anything:

As I said above, the Ethernet controller driver was updated 3 days ago along with several other driver updates, but everything had been working fine up until this morning, that's why I haven't tried restoring the computer to a previous date. Could that be the problem?


As having the laptop stuck in one place with such a short cord isn't exactly handy for the work I have to do, any help to solve this would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks in advance and have a Great Sunday :)

upload your MSINFO32.nfo file.

1. Click on the start button
2. Type "msinfo32" (without quotes) in the search bar of the start menu, click the resulting link. It will open the System Information window.
3. File>Save. In the "File Name" filed, put "MSINFO32" (without Quote), give the save location to desktop, and click the "save" button.
4. Give the time for processing, it will save a .nfo file on your desktop.
5. Zip it, and upload it following the instruction.

The uploaded .nfo file is not opening.

upload your MSINFO32.nfo file as text document.

1. Click on the start button
2. Type "msinfo32" (without quotes) in the search bar of the start menu, click the resulting link. It will open the System Information window.
3. File>Export. In the "File Name" filed, put "MSINFO32" (without Quote), give the save location to desktop, and click the "save" button.
4. Give the time for processing, it will save a .txt file on your desktop.
5. Zip it, and upload it following the instruction.

unfortunately I dont know the language of your system, the text file I cannot read. Sorry.

But, you may do one more thing to get the required information ..... update the network driver.
First, download the network card driver from manufactuer's website.
Then reinstall the driver:

1. Click the Start Button, type "devmgmt.msc" (without quotation marks) in the Start Menu Search box and press Enter.
2. Double click to expand "Network adaptors".
3. Right click your network card and Click "properties"
4. In the properties window, Click the "Driver" tab.
5. Click the "driver details" button.
6. Take a snip using snipping tool and upload the snip for us.

Atheros NIC driver:
Update from ATHEROS drivers for Microsoft Windows (Atheros?????).

Atheros network adapter driver:
Update from ATHEROS drivers for Microsoft Windows (Atheros?????).

Match the devices numbers with the listed numbers. If you are not sure about the numbers, see it in MSINFO32 > Network > Adapters.

Good to know :) If you think that your issue is solved by doing the driver update, mark it as solved, so that it may be easily indexed in future, and can some others having the same issue.

And, if there is any further issue, let us know :)