Windows 8 guru?

monaghan · Apr 13, 2015

I have a PC with a defective WLAN chip, when the driver is disabled in Windows 7 the PC boots, however, if I upgrade to Windows 8 it "finds" the WLAN chip and installs the driver and then blue screen's during the setup, if I update to the latest W7 driver, it also blue screens, uninstall the driver and W7 boots again.

The PC is one of those all in one jobbies so has no way to disable the WLAN device either by a physical switch or via BIOS.

Anyone know of a way to prevent the Windows setup from identifying and installing a driver? I can't get the system into safe mode during the install process in order to disable the driver (as I have done with W7 to get it back under control)

Any hints greatly received.

It isn't my PC otherwise I'd just ditch it, so that's not an option, neither is leaving it alone as it is on W7 Home and it needs to be on a domain so need to get it onto a Pro version and the rest of the network is W8

PoshTiger · Apr 13, 2015

Can you see the inf file it's using when in safe mode?

Locate the CompatibleID or HardwareID by looking at the details pane when you're looking at the device properties.

You can modify the inf file and change the CompatibleID/HardwareID so that it doesn't match yours, then won't get selected.

monaghan · Apr 13, 2015

No, the only way I can get it to boot is without the driver installed so have to select safe mode without networking, it isn't possible to get Windows 8 to start in safe mode until the setup is complete, if you try in between it then simply does a rollback on next boot.

I need to prevent setup from attempting to load the driver, but presume it is buried inside a compressed file somewhere in the install files.

Skinner · Apr 13, 2015

Is the wlan card BGA? or could you crack open the case and pull it ?

monaghan · Apr 14, 2015

Doesn't look to be an easy way into the system to check, no obvious covers to get to a PCI card, it's an Advent (Dixon's own brand), so no real chance of manufacturer support from DSG! Assuming lack of covers would suggest all in one motherboard, these things are made to a cost. Don't really fancy a strip down in the customer's office and it contains sensitive data so can't really pull it back here to fiddle with.

Skinner · Apr 14, 2015

I'm assuming you can use an upgrade rather than new install.

If you go to Device Manager and choose Uninstall Driver, then right click again and Choose Disable Device windows doesn't try to reinstall again. (I've never used Win 8 but in other versions it works like this).

If you then run the upgrade, wouldn't the previous version of windows setting (i.e. disabled) carry over ?

I've never done this to know if these settings carry over, but its worth a try.

Skinner · Apr 14, 2015

Another, you can transplant windows 8 installs, so install it on machine A, remove the relevant drivers, move the install to machine B, machine B will then find the wlan card but have no suitable drivers so will ask for a disk. Hopefully this wouldn't be enough to crash the system.

Is this possible ?

monaghan · Apr 14, 2015

Thanks,

The setup does a bus scan and then loads matching drivers based on what it finds rather than looking at what's there already from the old version.

If all else fails, might set to it with a set of screwdrivers later and see if the WLAN is on a card or soldered to the motherboard. Images I've found on Google are not very detailed but seem to suggest a laptop style PCI-E connector, unfortunately there are no obvious laptop style "hatches" in the case.