Question about cable connection

[Junkman]

I am using WinXp Sp1 and have needed to disconnect my network connection to my cable modem in order to install some drivers for my graphics and sound card. When I reboot without the nic being connected to the modem I get a message that windows has "recovered from a serious error". Is this normal? and is it something to be concerned about? Also, can this affect my driver installation?

 

[Lord Evermore]

I doubt it is due to the NIC not being connected. That message occurs when Windows gets shut down improperly, due to a crash, power loss, et cetera. It can also be caused by bad drivers (the error message may give you information regarding this). I know my roommate had a driver that Microsoft specifically addressed as causing this issue and had a patch for it (for his video drivers in fact, on an Asus GF2-GTS).

Since when do you have to disconnect your NIC to install drivers?

 

[Junkman]

Thanks for the reply Lord Evermore. Disconnecting the nic is required to install the drivers for my sound card according to the directions on the Hercules website for the FortissimoIII. Also it was required when using Driver Cleaner to remove the ATI drivers for my video card. I did look at the error report and sent the error report which brought up a ms website. The site said something about a device driver but it wasn't specific about which one. I think the reasoning for disconnecting the nic is so that Windows won't automatically download and install a driver over the internet. When my nic is connected and I reboot I dont get any warnings and windows starts normally. I can even disconnect the nic while windows is running and get no warnings other than the network icon in the system tray indicating that I'm not connected to the net.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Normally if you uninstall the drivers, when the system boots it uses local generic drivers and won't go online automatically, then you can install the specific drivers. It may be that the drivers that Windows is trying to load are screwed up, and using Driver Cleaner may be causing a problem. You shouldn't need to do anything more than run the uninstall for ATI's drivers. For the soundcard, since it isn't installed to start with, you can install the drivers, shut down and install the card, then reboot and it should use the new drivers.

At any rate, as long as you can boot and just close the error window, continuing the driver install will probably resolve it, since Windows is no longer looking for drivers you've deleted.