Qualcomm Atheros AR5007EG won't start after upgrade to W10

[Nick H.]

Hi, everyone, this is my first post here. It would be great if you can solve this for me. I'm fixing an ancient Toshiba Equium P200-178 for someone who's lost his job because of the virus.

The laptop was shipped with 32 bit Vista. It was dog slow and the user reported BSODs so I just formatted the disk and installed W10. Device Manager said the Atheros wifi adapter 'cannot start. Code 10'. There were about 10 other yellow flags in Device Manager. Some of them said 'This device cannot find enough resources that it can use. Code 12.' The laptop has a wifi switch on the front - this was switched on.

I updated Windows with a dongle. The dongle kept disconnecting from my wifi for no apparent reason, but I eventually finished the updating. The laptop has only 1 GB RAM, so everything is terribly slow. I looked for the manufacturer's drivers, which are on a site provided by Dynabook. There are no W10 drivers there, but I was able to check that the BIOS is up to date.

I found this thread https://www.windows10forums.com/threads/atheros-wlan-chip-shuts-down.12910/. The user has the same driver version, so I installed the two other versions recommended in the thread. Nothing changed.

At some point I removed the wifi dongle and the Atheros started working normally. I have no idea why. After 5 minutes it reverted to the state it was in before, i.e. cannot start. Code 10. Also, the USB sockets became very erratic at autosensing things plugged into them. Sometimes I could not get them to function without a restart.

In the Network Adapters section of Device Manager there were about 10 devices, mostly WAN miniport something or other, plus a Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller. I disabled all the network adapters except the Atheros, in the hope that this would free up some resources. The Atheros started working and it's been fine for the last hour, doing yet more Windows updating. I'm reluctant to hand the laptop back to the user because I don't trust this apparent fix and really have no idea what's going on. Many devices in Device Manager have 2, 3 or 4 identical entries. About 15 of these entries have yellow flags,

 

[bassfisher6522]

It's a pretty dated laptop as you stated. I'm not sure it even meets the minimum requirements to run 10. That said.....I would try a Linux distro......specifically Zorin Lite. It's made for devices with minimal hardware specs. It's pretty close to looking and feeling like Winodws. I keep the full version on a USB.

https://zorinos.com/

 

[Nick H.]

Thanks. I added some RAM - it's got 2 GB now and runs very nicely - it does a restart amazingly fast. I'm reluctant to get into Linux as I've never used it and it's not my laptop. It would be a bit off to tell the owner to get to know Linux when I have no experience of it.

The Atheros adapter has stopped working since my first post. It's back to 'cannot start, code 10.'

Eta: actually my post isn't sensible, is it? I should try Zorin Lite for a couple of days. If nothing else, it's a good learning opportunity.

 

[bassfisher6522]

Generally speaking, code 10 is driver related.

You say you have the Vista driver. If so, try running it in compatibility mode (Vista).

 

[Trouble]

actually my post isn't sensible, is it? I should try Zorin Lite for a couple of days.

That depends on your goal.
IF your goal is to provide the person your attempting to help with a usable computer...
Then a Linux distro might be a solution he or she might use as an interim fix.

There are any number of reasons why Windows 10 may be throwing up roadblocks.
It could be a BIOS issue, it could be a chipset driver that provides support for the various sub-systems that support the various integrated / connected devices
OR
It might be that the device is simply old and some of what you are experiencing is due to faulty or failing hardware.

One question???
Did you wipe and clean install Windows 10
OR
Did you upgrade Vista to 7 and the to 10??

 

[Nick H.]

That depends on your goal.
IF your goal is to provide the person your attempting to help with a usable computer...
Then a Linux distro might be a solution he or she might use as an interim fix.

There are any number of reasons why Windows 10 may be throwing up roadblocks.
It could be a BIOS issue, it could be a chipset driver that provides support for the various sub-systems that support the various integrated / connected devices
OR
It might be that the device is simply old and some of what you are experiencing is due to faulty or failing hardware.

One question???
Did you wipe and clean install Windows 10
OR
Did you upgrade Vista to 7 and the to 10??

As I said above, I formatted the disk and installed W10.

I think the user will be happy with Zorin Lite - he doesn't use many applications. I hope he will be OK with Firefox. (I haven't found Chrome/Chromium for 32-bit Zorin.)

The laptop is now dual boot with W10 as an alternative if he wants to use that. He could always buy a wifi dongle. But I would still like to get the Atheros wifi adapter working reliably with W10.

 

[Nick H.]

Generally speaking, code 10 is driver related.

You say you have the Vista driver. If so, try running it in compatibility mode (Vista).

I don't think I have the Vista driver. W10 found a driver from Jan 2016 which it says is the best one. Should I get the Vista driver from the manufacturer's driver site, and install it in compatibility mode?

 

[Trouble]

He could always buy a wifi dongle.

That was my first thought, but since you mentioned that he had lost his job, I assumed that spending money was not an option
AND
Since you also reported that the USB ports were glitchy, that it also might not provide a reliable solution.

As I said above, I formatted the disk and installed W10.

Sorry I missed that.
I just noticed upon re-reading your OP, the 32bit comment in reference to Vista.
Did you install the 32 bit version of Windows 10?

 

[Nick H.]

That was my first thought, but since you mentioned that he had lost his job, I assumed that spending money was not an option
AND
Since you also reported that the USB ports were glitchy, that it also might not provide a reliable solution.

Sorry I missed that.
I just noticed upon re-reading your OP, the 32bit comment in reference to Vista.
Did you install the 32 bit version of Windows 10?

Exactly, a dongle could be a waste of badly needed money if his USB ports keep acting up.

And yes, I did install 32 bit W10. The processor is a Pentium T2080 - I'm under the impression that everything has to be 32 bit? I tried to install 64 bit W10 first, but it was rejected.

Detailed spec of the laptop is here https://uk.dynabook.com/discontinued-products/equium-p200-178/

 

[Nick H.]

I'm now installing all the manufacturer's Vista 32 bit drivers for anything which seems to be on or adjacent to the system board. I'm using the Troubleshoot compatibility install routine in W10. So far it's recommending that everything be installed with settings for Vista service pack 2.

 

[Wolfie]

(I haven't found Chrome/Chromium for 32-bit Zorin.)

Google dropped 32 bit versions of Chrome a while back!.

You can get an older version of Chromium in form of a .deb package here:

https://pkgs.org/download/chromium-browser (Ubuntu 18.04).

It may well not be supported on later versions of Ubuntu based Linux distros??????.

 

[Nick H.]

Installing the old Vista drivers with compatibility settings didn't achieve anything. Now I want to try installing various Atheros drivers via Device Manager with the Have Disk option, but with compatibility settings for earlier versions of Windows. Is this possible?

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Nick,

make sure you have the files on your computer or USB stick, use device manager to change the drivers and click on "Browse" and point the installer to the files, it might not work if Windows thinks that the best drivers are already installed!.

 

[Nick H.]

Thanks. I've been successfully installing drivers that way, but I was wondering if it's possible to do it with compatibilty settings? Is there some way to give old drivers a Setup routine?

 

[Wolfie]

Is there some way to give old drivers a Setup routine?

Afaik there is only right click and select compatibility mode, maybe someone else has a suggestion for you?.