ASUS laptop trying and failing to install unneeded driver  

I bought a refurbed Asus K50IJ-BBZ5 laptop this week.

When I log into an administrator account after bootup, it will immediately give me a message about installing new device driver software, then in 20 seconds or so say that the install failed.

The failure message specifically says:

"Device Driver software was not successfully installed. Please consult with your device manufacturer for assistance getting this device installed. Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 PCI-E Ethernet Controller #25."

First, my ethernet works fine. I've plugged the laptop into a router and gotten to the internet, lost connection upon unplugging (i.e., it's not a wireless signal that is connecting me), reconnected upon plugging back in. Furthermore, when I have wireless enabled and am not plugged in by ethernet, I connect to the internet fine as well. So my wired and wireless internet access is fine.

Second, my device manager shows no unknown or bad devices.

Third, it shows that specific network adapter working fine.

Fourth, when I do try to update the device driver software using the device manager, it tells me that my driver is up to date.

So my issue isn't so much with the network adapter/ethernet, since they do what I want them to. My issue is how do I stop the computer from pushing this driver at me?

And I have cleaned the computer of most ASUS bloatware, and used msconfig to find what's running at startup, and there's nothing running that I see that is pushing this on me.

Ideas?

looking on Asus website K50IJ-BBZ5, you have AW-NB290 Wireless Lan fitted.

Go with pebbly's advice.

pebbly said:

Hi 450125, have a look at this tutorial, Drivers - Turn Off Automatic Driver Installation it may help you :)

I followed this tutorial, which tells me to set up Windows to never install driver software from Windows Update.

I did that, but upon restart, it still is trying to install a device driver.

The first time I restarted, it successfully installed a driver for Ethernet Controller #27 (what this means, i don't know - for the whole week it had been trying to install one for Ethernet Controller #25).

Okay, fine, maybe now were were done.

Nope, restarted, and this time it tried and failed to install a driver for Ethernet Controller #28. Huh?

Meanwhile, my Ethernet port works fine, and the device manager shows the thing as fine, with correctly updated driver software.

And yes, my configuration changes held. It still says to "Never install driver software from Windows Update" when I check.