...this is my last resort, haha... Here's the background on the story...I had a customer come in and he said his kid plays WoW and its to slow for him, he also said that when you first turn the computer on it "takes a long time to get past the blue HP screen"...long story short, I never saw POST hang while it was in the shop...I installed a new video card, looked over the system and called it done... 4 days later the customer came back with his HP and kid who reminded me of the World of Warcraft South Park episode...He was pissed off and said it still hangs when they turn it on and now his game crashes w/ an IRQ_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD...I talked to the kid because it was his PC and he informed me that it did that BEFORE we installed the video card (that would of been nice to know...)...I asked him if he had any USB devices plugged into it and he told me he did (another awesome piece of information left out)... Turns out his Linksys WUSB300N USB wireless adapter was causing POST to hang and also causing his game to crash...The kid says he NEEDS Wireless-N so he can play WoW so I installed a Linksys WMP300N PCI Card...here's where I am stuck... Windows Vista detected the card as a Broadcom Wireless-N device. I updated the driver to the latest Linksys ones...it worked like a charm before the first reboot...now it doesn't work..it says "the device name is in use by another service name" ...the hell does that mean? I went into device manager and views the hidden devices...there's 7 of the WUSB300N devices still in there...I am un-able to delete any of them via device manager or the registry, registry tells me access denied and device manager just won't delete them...says it does but it doesn't... Why am I unable to delete the devices? Why is this card not working after the 1st reboot...why are this kids parents supporting his addition to WoW and spending lots of money in the process?
You probably can't delete them because Windows thinks they're all in use. Can you disable them? Can you uninstall the drivers for it, after taking it out, then try to deal with Device Manager/Regedit? Even in Safe Mode? I've occasionally run into problems in all versions of windows, where I install something, and Windows promptly forgets it was there and reinstalls. Again and again. This happened almost every time while I was playing with Kubuntu, and I blame the DMI Pool being rebuilt, after switching from one OS to the other, for when that happens. Another cause of this problem for me, is when Windows installs some bogus misinterpreted drivers for this device before it is properly installed, and they fight it out for control. The Windows drivers win the fight and keep things wrong... Among other things, did you make sure to disallow the BIOS from the option of booting from a network? Also, the BIOS may need to be updated. If the system hangs at verifying DMI Pool data during bootup, then this device and the current BIOS just might not be getting along, which is also causing the Windows Driver Mixup problem. Finally, remember, I'm a clueless amateur. I'm just pulling rabbits out of my arse, to stimulate your brain cells with possibly fresh angles of attack. Everything I say should be taken with an economy-sized bag of Morton's Salt...
Get all the drivers together for the hardware in the PC, and burn them to a CD. Boot in to safe mode and delete, the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum Reboot the computer with a Windows XP CD and perform a repair install using the steps found on this site: How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install After the computer reboots, install ONLY the drivers of the unrecognized hardware. If it doesn't have a yellow exclamation point next to it, leave it alone. For stability reasons and because it's an HP, use WHQL drivers whenever possible. Then of course go to Windows Update and make sure it's patched.
Have you had luck with Windows Repair, Joker? I always end up with a broken system that limps just enough for me to retrieve data, before doing a complete reinstallation...
I'd recommend telling the customer that there is a virus on the computer (get one if you need there to be one) that is causing driver conflicts and the best method is to erase everything and start fresh. In my experience once windows driver conflicts start happening there is no stopping them.
j0k3r, its Vista not XP... I think Norton Internet Security's "Symantec Network Security Miniport" is not allowing me to delete/uninstall them but I am not sure...the driver provider for the 'ghost' network devices is listed as Symantec...I can't find any info on that though... Restoring the system is out of the question because the system works fine...the kid knows enough to know that it doesn't need a re-load so he keeps telling his Dad that...so they are pissed at me because they failed to tell me a bit if information the first time I worked on this HP...he is afraid he is going to loose all of his WoW stuff too and almost at the point of having a break down...
Have you had luck with Windows Repair, Joker? I always end up with a broken system that limps just enough for me to retrieve data, before doing a complete reinstallation...
Aside from the fact that he just wasted space by parroting me? If he did that on a bunch of other posts, I can see why. I hate all Symantec products anymore. In the old days Norton's Tools were useful and not buggy, but over time, they grew into bloatware that dug too deep into the system and caused more problems for me than they solved. I can well believe that they are causing your problems.
I guess what goofus said...i didn't see any of his work just that 3 posts into his stay he was booted
I have had this problem in Vista. part of the headaches migrating over was exactly what econobarn discribed. I still have a few "disabled pieces of hardware in my device manager as a result of doing what goofus suggested. Vista is a quirky animal fo'sho'.
Take my directions and replace "Windows XP" with "Windows Vista". The process is pretty much exactly the same.
