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IPsec causes BSOD in Wireless-AC 8260 driver

VVuor
Novice
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If an IPsec transport mode policy is installed, a Windows 10 x64 Pro (14393.693) laptop (Vaio Corporation Vaio Z) with a Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 will frequently crash in the Intel driver. This is reproducible on both 19.20.3 (vendor-shipped version) and 19.30.0 (Intel Download Center executable, with clean install). I have not tested tunnel mode, but it seems that the crash is triggered by new TCP connections, so it might be at least more rare with tunnel mode.

See attachment for dump summary. I can send the minidump if needed.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Configure a transport mode IPsec policy ("Connection Security Rule") from the Windows Firewall MMC snap-in or with PowerShell (New-NetIPsecRule). IPv4/IPv6 makes no difference, nor does the keying module or the crypto proposal.
  2. Open a connection that matches the policy and confirm that the SA is established (i.e. Monitoring > Security Associations > Quick Mode).
  3. Wait for approximately 30-60 minutes. Also putting the machine to sleep (Connected Standby) seems to increase crash likelihood.
  4. Start a process that opens multiple connections in succession that match the policy. For example, a browser with an auto-refreshing page.
  5. BSOD in netwtw04.sys due to DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL should occur within minutes.

This seems like a race condition between the Intel driver and the kernel IPsec handler, perhaps related to SA renegotiation. The crash occurs reliably with a remote peer with RTT around 4ms, but rarely with a peer on the same L2 network.

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idata
Employee
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Hello,

 

 

The investigation about this issue has concluded and it will be fixed with the next release of Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Drivers. Feel free to http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-support.html Contact Support if you have any additional questions.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan B.

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12 Replies
idata
Employee
1,550 Views

Hello MainPony,

 

 

As we understand, you system is having BSOD's when using IPsec, and it is reporting the Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 driver as the culprit. Here are a few items for your consideration based on the our review:

 

 

- Please perform a clean install of the https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26528/Intel-PROSet-Wireless-Software-and-Drivers-for-Windows-10?product=86068 Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Drivers for Windows® 10 [19.30.0]. We know you tested this already, but this is the recommended driver version.

 

- Go the Device Manager, under network adapters, look for the Wireless Adapter and open the properties. Go to the "Power Management" tab and toggle Off the option "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

 

- Go to the Power options of your laptop, in the Advanced Settings for your Power Plan, and make sure that the Wireless Adapter is set to work at "Maximum Performance" when plugged in and on battery.

 

 

We would like to mention that we have had similar reports of BSOD's in Windows® 10 pointing to the Intel® Wireless driver; in some cases this was due to 3rd party applications and malfunctioning filter drivers. In this scenario, the users solved this by uninstalling, or updating the 3rd party software.

 

Some of the common types of apps we have seen are: Network monitoring software, VPN software, Antivirus, Video/audio streaming apps.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan.
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VVuor
Novice
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I have uninstalled the driver (including removing existing settings), reinstalled and rebooted. Crash in netwtw04.sys occurs as before.

Power management settings for the Wireless-AC 8260 are not available as shown in the screenshot below.

The only Power Plan available on this machine is Balanced, and Advanced Settings does not support adjusting anything except lid/button actions, low-battery actions and screen saver timeouts. The OEM control software's ("Vaio Control") performance setting is already set to "Performance".

No third-party antivirus software, VPN software or similar is running. No streaming apps are in use, and the crash is easily reproduced with nothing besides a browser and Powershell running.

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idata
Employee
1,550 Views

Hello,

 

 

It seems that this PC has customization for wireless and power, since some common settings cannot be modified. We strongly advise you to engage the http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/topics/OEMs.html Computer Manufacturer Support about this as well.

 

 

In our best effort, you can try using the generic version of PROset, but with the "Driver Only",

 

 

1. Download https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/26527 Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Drivers for IT Admins, 19.30.0 for 64 bit. File: Wireless_19.30.0_Driver64_Win10.zip

 

2. Extract the contents of the zip file to a known location in the computer.

 

3. Go to Control Panel, Programs and Features and Uninstall "Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software". When prompted, choose the option to "Discard settings".

 

4. In Control Panel, Device Manager, Network Adapters, right click on the Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 and Uninstall it. Make sure you mark the option to "Delete the driver software for this device".

 

5. Reboot the PC or scan for hardware changes, check device manager and if an older wireless driver is detected and installed, repeat the actions to uninstall and delete it as well. Repeat this process until the OS does not allow deleting the driver, or until the controller shows as Unknown Device.

 

6. Remove temporary files: Press the Windows Key + R to open the run box. Type Cleanmgr.exe. Press OK. Select the main drive, usually C:\. Check Temporary Files and uncheck everything else. Press OK.

 

7. Go to Device Manager and locate the 8260 (it may be an unknown device), select the option to install the driver and browse to the location where you extracted the driver files.

 

 

If the issue persists, we would advise to engage http://us.vaio.com/support/ Vaio* Support, and install their software version. The driver or software for your Intel® component might have been changed or replaced by the computer manufacturer.

 

Feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan.
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VVuor
Novice
1,550 Views

Thanks for the tip, looks like the vendor driver was using some trickery to stay installed. (It would be nice if the ProSet exe installer would give a warning if the driver is not the expected one at the end of setup.) I removed all prior versions from the driver store, uninstalled the driver (with delete driver enabled) from Device Manager, verified that the driver store was clean, installed the 10.30.0 bare driver, and now I'm seeing version 10.30.0.4 everywhere.

Unfortunately, this does not help, and the crash occurs as before.

Looks like the Power Management settings are disabled on Connected Standby devices for network adapters as described in this Microsoft support article (as apparently are the advanced power plan settings mentioned above): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2889143/power-management-tab-is-not-visible-for-some-wireless-network-adapters-with-always-on-always-connected-aoac-platforms-on-windows-8 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2889143/power-management-tab-is-not-visible-for-some-wireless-network-adapters-with-always-on-always-connected-aoac-platforms-on-windows-8

Disabling Connected Standby (by setting CsEnabled to 0 in the registry) makes these settings available again. However, the crash in netwtw04.sys stil occurs even after power management was disabled as specified in your earlier reply. Dump info from the latest driver is attached.

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idata
Employee
1,550 Views

Hello,

 

 

We would like to review some details of the system, please provide the following:

 

 

- https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25293/Intel-System-Support-Utility Download Intel® System Support Utility with the adapter working fine, run the tool and use it to create a report with all sections, on the next screen, Save the report to a file. Then use the Advanced editor options to add the resulting XML file to your post as an attachment.

 

 

- Reproduce the issue and collect system event logs:

 

 

1. Clear the system event log.

 

a. Launch Event Viewer by clicking Win+X and select "Event Viewer"

 

b. Select "Windows logs" and right click on "System"

 

c. Select "Clear log…" and "Clear"

 

2. Close or minimize Event Viewer".

 

3. Reproduce the WiFi issue.

 

4. Open Event viewer and navigate to System.

 

5. Right click on "System" and select "Save All Events As…"

 

6. Zip and upload the system log file.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan.
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VVuor
Novice
1,550 Views

Here you are. This time took a while, crashed after 61 minutes during a file transfer.

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idata
Employee
1,550 Views

Hello,

 

 

We will need some additional information about your system in order to issue an accurate analysis. Please check your Private messages for further details.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan.
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idata
Employee
1,551 Views

Hello,

 

 

The investigation about this issue has concluded and it will be fixed with the next release of Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software and Drivers. Feel free to http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/contact-support.html Contact Support if you have any additional questions.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan B.
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VVuor
Novice
1,550 Views

I can confirm that this crash is fixed with the 19.50.1 driver release. Thanks to Intel for resolving this.

idata
Employee
1,550 Views

Hello, MainPony,

 

 

Thanks for the update. We are glad to know that the new driver worked for you and that your system is working fine.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan B.
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JHoop1
Beginner
1,550 Views

I'm still having this same problem with the newest driver release. Only way for me to keep from bsod is to disable the wifi driver. My pc is a alienware aurora r6 thats 3 weeks old and has done been sent back to them twice. To fix the issue.

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idata
Employee
1,550 Views

Hello Jhooper42,

 

 

BSOD's can be caused by many reasons. Please let us know you are using an IPsec transport mode policy in your environment as reported in the original post.

 

 

If the BSOD's are caused by a different reason than the one mentioned in this thread, please create a new question in the /community/tech/wireless/overview Wireless Networking Support Community.

 

 

Regards,

 

Jonathan B.
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