My linksys wireless adapter that I've been using for 2 years now suddenly restarts my computer. I thought I had a virus at first, and I wound up wiping my hdd and reinstalling xp. Discovered it was my adapter doing it. As soon as it gets plugged in it reboots my computer and then continually does it until I unplug it. I've talked with linksys tech and they say it's because its incompatible with xp's sp3. Well i used it with sp3 with no problems for a couple of months. And now after the reinstalled os, it reboots under no sp, sp1, sp2, and sp3. I've been having a heart attack trying to get this figured out. It has to be some kind of stupid setting somewhere. Anybody got any ideas?????????
If it just started doing it one day, it is probably a bad piece of hardware.
If it did it only after re-install, and you are using the latest drivers off their website, try some older drivers. If you are using the CD drivers, try the latest from the website.
I have 2 of the same adapters and they both do it. I have 9 usb ports, all of them trip it. The reinstall was because of the adapters. Linksys has no new drivers, and I downloaded the ones from Ralink and tried those but they didn't work either. It doesn't even matter anymore, I broke down and bought a new adapter from somebody else.
I had a machine that exhibited this behaviour, it was caused by any USB device being plugged in.
Much troubleshooting later, it turned out it was software doing it. In my case it was WindowBlinds. I have no idea how or why, but removing the software resolved it (the OS had never had to be rebuilt previously nor at the time of the problems, the laptop had been 100% stable for about 3yrs until WindowBlinds was installed). Removed the offending software and laptop was 100% stable again.
