Windows XP home freezes with SMC wireless NIC installed

[SEFL]

Hi there,

I'm trying to get into my wireless network with a Windows XP Home Edition PC (SP2). I've installed an SMCWPCI-G-CA NIC card and it just seems to freeze the system to the point where I can't even CTRL-ALT-DEL to get it going again.

Here's what I know:

No error message in Event Viewer.
No IRQ conflicts.

This is what I did (no difference):

The power settings for the NIC have been changed from Normal to Maximum to Off (the only three it has).
I disabled Wireless Zero in services (since SMC has its own software to deal with this sort of thing) to get rid of the EAPOL error in Event Viewer. This got the machine to hang in about half an hour instead of within the first two minutes.
I took out the NIC and put it into a different slot.
I uninstalled/reinstalled the software for it.
I switched the NIC with another one.

Any ideas would be very much appreciated right now.

[cszeto]

What you are describing is most likely a hardware issue not releated to any actual networking - which is what these forums are focues upon. You might try "simplifying" (e.g. removing all cards and slowly re-introducing) your hardware configuration to isolate the conflict.

[SEFL]

cszeto: I only had two cards (NIC and modem). I removed the modem to see if it did it, and I also disabled all onboard cards (wired NIC and sound) to ensure that there was no conflict that way.

I ended up calling Asus on the matter (since SMC was no help and told me to buy another PCI NIC card, which I had) and they said it was due to PCI compatibility. They don't keep records of this sort of thing, so they said to try a USB NIC, which I did and that's what solved the problem.

It wasn't the best solution, but I'm not picky.

[cszeto]

Unfortunately, there is quite a fair amount of PCI hardware compatibility challenges. It seems like Asus at least acknowledged it. Thanks for sharing your outcome.