Strange wireless problem: constant disk activity

Hi.

My sister has a strange problem with her wireless Internet connection on Windows XP. I think it's related to the specific software that came with her modem, but I haven't been able to pin it down.

Basically, the computer is constantly accessing the hard disk -- you can hear it churning away non-stop -- whenever she is connected to her wireless router. (There is plenty of free space on the disk, so it can't be a virtual memory thing.) The disk activity stops immediately when you disconnect from the wireless network.

I used FileMon to see what was going on. Windows Explorer is constantly reading AVWLPRES.DLL (one of the wireless-related files, from Ashton Digital Corp; the file's "internal name" is PWLANRES.DLL, and a Google search suggests that it ultimately came from the Prism modem company).

Can anyone guess what is going on here? Why would Explorer be constantly reading a DLL, and only while connected to the Internet wirelessly? What could we try doing to stop this?

Eq.

Reply to
Paul E Collins
Loading thread data ...

Malware of some kind?

Reply to
LouB

Perhaps this is some kind of buggy wireless config utility supplied with the wireless adaptor. You could try using Windows' built in connection management, aka Wireless Zero Config.

Reply to
alexd

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:20:30 +0100, "Paul E Collins" wrote in :

Virtual memory is about memory space, not hard disk space. Check Commit Charge in Windows Task Manager. Better yet, use (free) Sysinternals Process Explorer.

How much network traffic is there? Have you snooped the packets?

Something is seriously wrong.

Possible driver issue. Try uninstalling and reinstalling the Wi-Fi device driver. Make sure you have the latest version.

Reply to
John Navas

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.