Continued network problems and BAD_POOL_HEADER BSOD

[rkin005]

My Surface Pro 3 running Win 8.1 with all the latest updates continues to have problems with the network adapter. In the last week or so I've also had 3 BSOD crashes, at least two of these were when I was experiencing network problems.

Are all Surface Pro 3s suffering from this problem? Is mine a dud and I should return it to Microsoft? Will updated firmware ever fix this problem or should I throw it away and buy a dell?

The network problems include:

• Surface is very unreliable connecting to different wifi networks. Usually I find if it's not connecting ok I need to restart the computer and then it'll connect fine. Meanwhile other people's PCs and my other devices have no problems connecting.
• I have two wifi networks with the same name but in different locations. My surface doesn't seem to like this so much. When I move to a different location it shows as Connected but without internet, I need to Disconnect and Connect in order for it to work.
• Occasionally when I click the network icon in the systray the side panel displays with no Wifi listed. i.e. not even the heading 'Wifi', let along listing any wifi networks
• Sometimes if I mouse over the network icon in the systray the tooltip tells me I'm on a different wifi network to the one displayed when I click on the icon and view the side panel
• Sometimes when I'm having network problems I click on the network icon and nothing happens - the network display is unresponsive, for several minutes.
• Chrome and Microsoft Office suffer many-second unresponsive application hangs every day or two ... this might be application related but it's a bit odd they're not more resilient to slow internet at times. I'm somewhat suspicious that it's related to something dodgy going on with the network card being unresponsive when it's expected to be responsive.

Other problems too but I've become so used to the networking being rubbish that I tend not to make detailed notes I just sigh and put up with it or restart my computer.

thanks,

Rory

 

[razy60]

My Surface Pro 3 running Win 8.1 with all the latest updates continues to have problems with the network adapter. In the last week or so I've also had 3 BSOD crashes, at least two of these were when I was experiencing network problems.

Are all Surface Pro 3s suffering from this problem? Is mine a dud and I should return it to Microsoft? Will updated firmware ever fix this problem or should I throw it away and buy a dell?

The network problems include:

• Surface is very unreliable connecting to different wifi networks. Usually I find if it's not connecting ok I need to restart the computer and then it'll connect fine. Meanwhile other people's PCs and my other devices have no problems connecting.
• I have two wifi networks with the same name but in different locations. My surface doesn't seem to like this so much. When I move to a different location it shows as Connected but without internet, I need to Disconnect and Connect in order for it to work.
• Occasionally when I click the network icon in the systray the side panel displays with no Wifi listed. i.e. not even the heading 'Wifi', let along listing any wifi networks
• Sometimes if I mouse over the network icon in the systray the tooltip tells me I'm on a different wifi network to the one displayed when I click on the icon and view the side panel
• Sometimes when I'm having network problems I click on the network icon and nothing happens - the network display is unresponsive, for several minutes.
• Chrome and Microsoft Office suffer many-second unresponsive application hangs every day or two ... this might be application related but it's a bit odd they're not more resilient to slow internet at times. I'm somewhat suspicious that it's related to something dodgy going on with the network card being unresponsive when it's expected to be responsive.

Other problems too but I've become so used to the networking being rubbish that I tend not to make detailed notes I just sigh and put up with it or restart my computer.

thanks,

Rory

I have not experienced most of your problems, however one thing I did notice was that using my phone's hotspot caused a recognition problem, as it turned out I had recently factory refreshed my phone which although the name was the same the password was different as a result the Surface would not connect until I had deleted that location it's been fine since.
1, no reliability connecting to various networks of any sort.
2, If you have 2 networks with the same name then chances are there will be a conflict, change the name of one of them and see what happens.
As for the rest not sure as I have not experienced any of those issues, but if the network card is trying to resolve a connection problem then it will be unresponsive.
There have been times when a connection was problematic but that was due to conflicts within my network area not the device, either switching the card off and on or a reboot as you know generally fixed it, or moving closer to one or the other router fixed it.
That is not to say that your surface may have a problem, but first I would check where possible any of the network routers/switches you can
I am posting this using my mobile phone hotspot.

 

[Cyb3rDud3]

Very odd, the only network problem I have is with my Lumia 930 as a hotspot since it keeps turning its sharing off...Otherwise it is stable both at home, work, and the two or three hotels I go to each week...

I assume you've applied all updates and are fully current and haven't messed about with other drivers than the one that it came with? Saying that, mine are intercepted with VM Workstation due to the VM's that I'm running on it...

 

[sharpuser]

@rkin005

Try disabling IPv6 on your adapter if you have that on. It could be that some dynamic routing is hopping away from your connection.

 

[rkin005]

@sharpcolorado - thanks, having just had my 2nd or 3rd BSOD this week I'll give that a try now.

I do have a slightly interesting setup:
* LogMeIn Hamachi installed, so I have a Hamachi network adapter listed in Network Adapters
* Hyper-V installed, although it's currently disabled so I'm able to use Sleep. "vEthernet (External 1)" listed in Network Adapters.
* For some reason I have another Hyper-V-like adapter listed "vEthernet (External 1) #1", which I think was created by Windows getting confused at some point when creating a Hyper-V network. Probably one of these vEthernet adapters should be removed.

I've disabled IPv6 on all of them for now and will see if that makes any difference.

@Cyb3rDud3 - yes, I'm on latest updates and haven't messed with my drivers, although I do have the stuff listed above.

@razy60 - I'll change the home wifi network name, although really that shouldn't cause any issues as it's very common for different networks to have the same SSID so windows/surface should cope just fine. As for the routers/switches, I'm in an office with many others on a variety of different devices and I'm the only one that BSODs or has such persistent problems. Two colleagues have Surface Pro 3s and don't experience these problems.

thanks, and any other suggestions welcome,

Rory

 

[Cyb3rDud3]

I have hyper-v as well but disabled and VMware taken primacy. I would start with removing logmein to just eliminate that.

Does it actually say what the bsod is for? Is it a hardware problem?