Category Archives: Windows 7

Belkin, D-Link, HP, Intel, Linksys, Marvell, Microsoft, ML110 G5, ML350 G5, ML350 G6, Netgear, Nvidia, ProLiant, Ralink, Realtek, SBS 2003, SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2003, Small Business Server 2008, Small Business Server 2011, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP

How to update Network Adapter and Wireless Adapter Drivers within Windows

You may be finding that your network or internet connection is slow or unreliable, you may also find that your computer responds far more slowly whilst you are using network resources because your network adapter drivers are not fully optimised. Wireless network adapter users may find that they cannot connect to some wireless points and/or that wireless range is not what they expect.

Any of these issues could be related to using outdated network adapter drivers so update them.

The primary types of network adapter that you will find in use today are PCI, PCI-Express or USB.  Even wireless and cabled network adapters that are integrated into a laptop or computer will still use one of these fundamental bus types.  Despite who you bought your laptop or computer from (i.e. Dell, HP, Acer, Sony) you will most likely find that a thrd party supplied the network adapter module or chip.  This is actually a good thing because it means that you are not restricted to the often outdated drivers that your system manufacturer will issues when your machine is first produced but then subsequently forget about and never update.

The process to update the drivers usually involves downloading and extracting the zipped/compressed driver file and then using Device Manager to verify and update the drivers are compatible and will install.  You will usually find that the extracted drivers folder includes an “inf” file and various “dll” files.

Once you have the drivers downloaded and extracted on your machine its time to launch Device Manager and find the network adapter that you wish to update the drivers for. On my example machine we want to update the Realtek PCIe Gigabit Adapter so we will double click on it and verify the current driver version.

Here we can see the driver version is “7.23.623.2010 and the date the drivers were released is “23/06/2010”.

Now we want to click “Update Driver” and select the location of the new drivers that we downloaded earlier. To do this we need to click “Browse my computer for driver software” and then selecte the location of the extracted driver files.

Once we have carried out the update the new version will show along with the updated driver release date.

You will usually find that the network adapter in your computer or laptop is manufactured by one of the companies listed below, next to each manufacturer is also a link to the official driver download/support page.

Intel           http://downloadcenter.intel.com
Realtek      http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/
Broadcom http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php
Nvidia        http://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk
Marvell      http://www.marvell.com/support/downloads/search.do
Ralink        http://www.ralinktech.com/en/04_support/support.php?sn=500
D-Link       http://www.d-link.co.uk/support
Netgear      http://support.netgear.com/app/
Linksys       http://homesupport.cisco.com/en-eu/support/linksys
Belkin         http://www.belkin.com/uk/support/

Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7

Windows 7 RTM or SP1 – Slow System Startup When Your Machine Contains a Large Hard Disk Drive

You may find that when you have a large hard disk drive the number of restore points that are retained causes the Windows 7 boot plan to exceed the file size of 512 kilobytes (KB).  512 KB being the precached limit means that the boot plan is no longer cached and causes the system startup to be slower. This is due to the fact that each restore point needs to be verified during system startup and as a result gets included in the boot plan.

A hotfix is available from Microsoft KB 2555428 that resolves the issue http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2555428

Microsoft, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2/SBS 2011 RTM or SP1 – Slow System Startup and Login

You may experience very slow system start up on occasion, this is due to Windows carrying out an unnecessary validation of the WMI repository.  This validation is very time consuming and slows the overall start up and login process down.

A Microsoft hotfix is now available KB 2617858 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2617858 and should resolve the slow startup by preventing unnecessary validations of the WMI repository.

 

Fax, Microsoft, SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2008, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

The Microsoft Fax Service may crash randomly on Windows Server 2008 – SP2, SBS 2008 – SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2, SBS 2011

You may find that the Microsoft Windows fax service randomly crashes, this will be evident in the Windows Application Event Log where you will find Events with a Source of “Application Error”. These will reference “fxssvc.exe” and the exception code within the event will most likely be “0xc0000005”.

The error can occur because of a race condition in the fax service, this in turn can cause the access violation knocking the fax service over.
The issue can be resolved by installing the Microsoft Hotfix from KB 2302075 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2302075 this hotfix contains updated versions of “Fxssvc.exe” for Server 2008/Vista/SBS 2008 – SP2 and Server 2008 R2/Windows 7/SBS 2011