IT Professionals

Windows Update Weirdness (Pt. III Of A Continuing Saga)

Posted by on Jun 23, 2008 | 4 Comments

Last Sunday, I invested a couple more hours into troubleshooting some nasty issues with Windows Update causing my machine to lose Internet connectivity. The first installment of the saga is here, and the second installment is here.

The outcome was actually pretty decent, although far from perfect. I now have a means by which I can install Windows Updates to my Vista PC, and then jump start my PC’s Internet connectivity (which invariably fails after any updates are installed). At the suggestion of a helpful Microsoft Security Response Center engineer, I removed my PC’s LAN adapter (Intel 82566DC Gigabit Ethernet) in Device Manager, then restarted the PC. Amazingly, full connectivity was restored.

I dug around a little more, looking for updated drivers for my Intel NIC. I found some from the Intel web site that were much more recent than what I was currently running. I ran the Intel driver installer package, which seemed to want to install some extra fluff aside from the drivers (most of which I unchecked in the installer before proceeding). After the installer ran, guess what, I lost Internet connectivity again. Even removing and letting the NIC re-load after a restart didn’t bring back my PC’s Internet connection. I ended up having to uninstall the Intel installer package, and revert back to an older driver.

I gave the driver update another go-around, this time, I extracted just the Vista drivers from the Intel download, and did an old-school driver update directly from the device manager. The drivers installed successfully, but again, the PC lost Internet connectivity. But this time, when I removed the LAN adapter and restarted, my connectivity was restored, and the drivers were the newer version that I had just updated to.

While I am not letting the Windows Update process of the hook (after all, this all started after last week’s updates), it would seem know that the crux of the problem lies with the Intel NIC.

When you think about it, there are a lot of potential areas to assign blame. Microsoft — which I initially pointed to as the first culprit when things broke after installing some critical updates; then there is Intel, the maker of the Network adapter and drivers, which now seem to be the weak link. Then there is HP, the maker of my Pavilion Elite m9060n PC.

All I know is that I’m still very frustrated by the situation. Now that I have a relatively reliable work-around that I can use should I encounter the same problem, I’m not sure how inclined I am to rebuild my PC.

What I’ll probably end up doing is run for as long as I can on this PC, then buy (or build) a new rig. After all, when I move to my new home in Tulsa, I’ll have my Cat-6 Gigabit LAN infrastructure to play with. But before I do migrate to a new primary rig, I’m going to get serious about getting off of Windows. In all reality, I think I’ll end up with some sort of Mac rig, with a Dual-OS scenario (either via Boot Camp, or VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop). That way I can call up Windows when I need it, but otherwise not be entirely dependent on it.

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  • robert maidment

    I have the same problem – not getting internet connectivity.
    I don’t have an Intel network adapter and the PC is from a different supplier.

    So its back to Microsoft!!

    I have contacted them through the community system and they have no solution either!!!

    My work around is to reset the adapter which seems to work most of the time.

    Rob

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/theoracle/ the oracle

    Have you ever considered that the problem could be related to plug and play? I have several machines that, if anything changes, such as the CMOS backup battery dying, become a mess. I can update them, by using a certain process, and adding PCI cards back in, but only in a certain order – or the whole house of cards falls. The IRQs and ROM addresses will not resolve, however, when the additions are done in the proper order, all is well. I have had driver updates break the ‘house’ as well, and so I tend to stick with what works until the new driver gets proven on a less heavily configured machine.

    I am certain this is a problem with the Windows implementation of things, because I can install Fedora or SuSE, and all is well, no matter how the cards are in the machine. Same machine, same cards. Yet I caontinue to use Windows, mainly because the family likes it, and so do the bulk of my customers.

    One thing that few people say on LG, is that there is not much money to be made with Linux support, because most users seem to be self supporting. (There are no large companies using RedHat anywhere near where I live)

  • Joey

    Matt,

    First let me tell you that I truly enjoy reading your articles & my comments below are not intended to begin a flame-war with you or any other of your readers. It is my intent to lend assistance – nothing more.

    I am VERY surprised at your actions concerning this matter. I believe that manipulating the NIC drivers is/was the wrong path to take with this.

    One of the main principles that I have been teaching my IT desktop support students during my ‘troubleshooting’ lecture is the old concept of “Last In, First Out (LIFO)”. Simply put (for those who may not have heard of it: If the system was working fine before any given even & it doesn’t work after said even — remove/undo that even. I went back to your first two posts of this saga and noted where you stated that you DID have network connectivity after ‘Patch Tuesday’ – there-by confirming that your NIC was functional. Now why I do not defend Intel (heaven knows their updates have crashed enough of my systems); it seem to me that the cause of your issue lies completely with Microsoft on this one.

    On another note; I noted that you do not mention that you had checked Event Viewer for entries that occur post-patch install or for any “Internet” related services that might have been changed. May we infer from this omission that there were no such related entries worth noting? Also, have you checked for any setting changes at your point of internet connection/router? Microsoft denies any type of ‘issues’ with their IPv6 aspects in Vista; however, I have yet to get any system using Vista (either my customers or my own) to connect to any given ISP in our area, until I turn it off. We have also started seeing issues with Vista’s SP1 for Home Premium. It turns all of the Vista’s ‘bells & whistles’ BACK on after we turn them off.

    I truly hope that this might provide some insight/assistance with your situation.

    Your friend & fellow IT geek,

    Joey

  • http://www.justcallmatt.net/ Matt Wilkinson

    Joey-

    Good stuff. I did audit my event logs, and didn’t see anything too earth shattering around the time the trouble started.

    Agree with your LIFO approach, which is why I’m not letting Microsoft off the hook. I didn’t have any of this behavior until that last round of patches.

    I hate to use the “crutch” of removing/re-adding the NIC as my work-around, but it boils down to time (or lack thereof).

    I’ve been running on Vista SP1 for quite some time w/ no problems, connectivity or otherwise.

    This is just one of those problems that can gobble up days of your life, and until I am willing to invest that amount of time, I’ll probably just live with the crutch.

    Great comments though, keep ‘em coming.