Why do all VPN's give me the BSOD?

August 28, 2013 1:56 PM

I have tried several VPN's on two different PC's running windows 7 and they all crash both my computers with a BSOD. How can this be?

Computer 1: Dell Desktop, Win7 Pro, 5yrs old
Computer 2: Lenovo Thinkpad, Win7 home, new


Computers will run fine without problems for days on end until I run VPN program, then they will BSOD in a few hrs.

BSOD is always IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL

All drivers for network and wireless devices are up to date on both computers.

The computers fail w/ BSOD when using Norton AV, BidDefender and eSet.

I have tried PrivateInternetAccess, Boleh, IPVanish and StrongVPN. All fail on two different computers.

What is going on here? Help!

Thanks,

Gnossos

posted by gnossos to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Huh, that's an odd situation. BSODs are almost invariably caused by either faulty hardware (particularly RAM) or buggy drivers. Neither seems particularly likely to affect two different computers like you're seeing. Is there any chance you installed some program on both machines that added a kernel driver? Try running a malware scan.

Even though it's a long shot, you might also want to run something like memtest86 to rule out bad RAM.
posted by teraflop at 2:07 PM on August 28, 2013

Best answer: You may have a 64 bit OS with a 32 bit driver. I dunno what the deal is, but our VPN software is the midnight fukken rider when it comes to 64 bit OSes. Everything up to date, but still bluescreens with that same error. The vendor swears that it's not their driver, but the minidumps don't lie.

You might try disabling DEP on your VPN software. That worked for some (but not all) people here.
posted by boo_radley at 2:17 PM on August 28, 2013

I recommend you try these VPNs after uninstalling (or at least disabling) your AV software. Are you running all three of these AV packages on the same computer?
posted by me & my monkey at 2:24 PM on August 28, 2013

Does it show what module the error occurred in?
posted by gjc at 2:48 PM on August 28, 2013

Response by poster: I tried running VPN's with AV and Firewall protection off. Still got the Blue screens. No, I am not running them all at the same time. It is a list of historical AV's I have run in the past.

Failure in NETIO.sys.
posted by gnossos at 2:54 PM on August 28, 2013

Is that using the built in Windows networking "create a new connection" thing? Or some kind of 3rd party VPN software?

If it is all completely standard windows networking, then I'd have to blame the security software.

If it is a 3rd party client, I'd look to that as the cause first. Maybe downgrading to an older version of that driver would help?
posted by gjc at 4:00 PM on August 28, 2013

Disable all VPN services other than the one you're trying to use. Right click on My Computer, choose Manage, then Services.

Also, consider doing the same for any unused network adapters, esp those "virtual" network adapters that are created by e.g. VMware or VirtualBox or some AV/ "Internet security" apps.

I've had BSOD's fixed by doing the above.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:39 PM on August 28, 2013

Where did you get your network card drivers from? Pre-installed? Self-installed? Windows Update?
posted by devnull at 3:38 AM on August 29, 2013

Response by poster: I looked up the network card nomenclature in Device Manager, then went to the manufacturers' web sites to get the latest drivers.
posted by gnossos at 8:02 AM on August 29, 2013