Windows 7 hangs during network copy (bug)
I've been trying to find a place to post a bug report and I ended up here, apologies if there's a better place. On to the bug...Problem: User interface completely freezesOS: Windows 7Ethernet adapter: Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T ControllerDescription:When I attempt to copy large files onto a shared network directory the entire user interface freezes. No response to the mouse or keyboard. Waiting several minutes (i.e. long enough for the copy to finish) does not restore functionality. The only option being a hard reset.The remote network share is running on a Linux box using a Samba server. There is presently no anti-virus installed locally.Troubleshooting:Action centre does not report anything useful besides a message that Windows was not shut down properly.The same failure happens when I try to copy the file using explorer or robocopy (from the command line). The only difference is that explorer seems to create the full sized file on the network share and start copying before it freezes (the contents of the file were however incomplete with only a few bytes of content copied as best I can tell). Robocopy failed with no traces of the file being copied at the destination.I tried turning off Remote Differential Compression but this didn't help the problem.Drivers:Initially I had some issues with BSODs when I installed the Marvell driver for my ethernet adapter that is provided on the ASUS website for my specific motherboard.I removed these and installed the latest drivers from the Marvell website which fixed the BSODs. However with these I have guaranteed UI freezing when attempting to copy large files.I finally removed these drivers so that Windows would revert to its own set. Now when attempting to copy the files into the network share I still get instant UI freeze if the share is empty. However, when attempting to copy a file which will overwrite an existing one (or attempting to delete the file on the network share) I instead get a message that the file is in use by another program and can not be overwritten/removed.
May 27th, 2009 5:34am

I have a similar problem. I have an Acer 5720 travelmate with a Broadcom Netlink gigabit on Cisco gigabit network. Copying files from server under a gig no problem and very fast, but as soon as I copy over a gig, it bombs my network and I am completely off and have to reboot. This has happened twice in the last week now. I am using the drivers that Windows installed and otherwise it is working perfectly. Any ideas or should I try install manufacture driver? Running 32bit build 7100.
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May 27th, 2009 5:18pm

I forgot to mention in my original post that I'm using the Windows 7 RC (build 7100).
May 29th, 2009 9:07am

hetmankp, I'm sorry to hear that you're having issues with your Windows 7 machine freezing up. You might want to consult the Windows 7 forum at microsoft.com/springboard, there may be some information about compatibility with your system, please keep in mind, if your system was stable before, and you have the Vista Drivers they will work with Windows 7, so you may want to revert to them.Thanks, v-glferg@microsoft.com
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June 3rd, 2009 8:57pm

I've been trying to find a place to post a bug report and I ended up here, apologies if there's a better place. On to the bug... Problem: User interface completely freezes OS: Windows 7 Ethernet adapter: Atheros L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller Description: When I attempt to copy large files onto a shared network directory the entire user interface freezes. No response to the mouse or keyboard. Waiting several minutes (i.e. long enough for the copy to finish) does not restore functionality. The only option being a hard reset. The remote network share is running on a Linux box using a Samba server. There is presently no anti-virus installed locally. Troubleshooting: Action centre does not report anything useful besides a message that Windows was not shut down properly. The same failure happens when I try to copy the file using explorer or robocopy (from the command line). The only difference is that explorer seems to create the full sized file on the network share and start copying before it freezes (the contents of the file were however incomplete with only a few bytes of content copied as best I can tell). Robocopy failed with no traces of the file being copied at the destination. I tried turning off Remote Differential Compression but this didn't help the problem. Drivers: Initially I had some issues with BSODs when I installed the Marvell driver for my ethernet adapter that is provided on the ASUS website for my specific motherboard. I removed these and installed the latest drivers from the Marvell website which fixed the BSODs. However with these I have guaranteed UI freezing when attempting to copy large files. I finally removed these drivers so that Windows would revert to its own set. Now when attempting to copy the files into the network share I still get instant UI freeze if the share is empty. However, when attempting to copy a file which will overwrite an existing one (or attempting to delete the file on the network share) I instead get a message that the file is in use by another program and can not be overwritten/removed. I am having the same problem with the same configuration. It seems heavy network traffic is the killer as my computer runs fine until a good connection is made with the other computer on my network. This also happens when I run a Torrent. Is there a way to load the Vista Drivers? I downloaded them and they will not install noting "invalid operating system". Cheers, Sean
July 1st, 2009 5:54am

There is a new driver effective June 22, 2009 available off the atheros site. I'll give that a try.
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July 1st, 2009 6:24am

I have this exact same problem on RTM. Same network card. Driving me crazy. Have you fixed w/ a different driver? Thanks
August 22nd, 2009 4:32pm

Have you tried shareing files with another windows client? if you have access to a windows share try moving a file from the problem machine to another windows machine share. It can be XP, Vista, 7, 2000, 2003. 2008. if it works, it clears your network hardware and drivers. Which would point to linux samba service. it seems to be an authentication conflict. You have access to the share. But by default permissions are set to read, list contents, and execute for normal SMB shares. Basically if the linux is restricting access to copy files to the share and win 7 thinks it can, the auth process will be stuck and cause a buffer overload on your network device causing the freeze. But i don't know if you got other windows machines that work fine copying files to the linbox which would rule out my diagnosis.
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August 24th, 2009 10:10am

Same problem for me. Atheros driversdefinitely have issues when Robocopy is used with them. In my case, I have problems with hanging and freezing during Robocopy runswith the Atheros L1E network interface and anAsus P5Q motherboard running Windows Vista 64-bit. Microsoft really need to get on to Atheros about this, especially as the Atheros drivers are WHQL certified.
August 28th, 2009 11:52pm

I have confirmed this indeed only happens when copying to Linux Samba shares. When copying the same large file to a Windows XP share this issue does not occur. This is not a permissions problem however, I have write permissions and I can copy to this location with the same authentication details in Windows XP without any problems. Indeed, when the UI locks up, a corrupted version of the file does in fact appear on the remote Samba share, so *something* does get written. In any case, even if it was a write permission problem, having the whole UI lock up would not be a graceful or acceptable way to handle such a conflict. The drivers that were causing the system to blue screen were for Vista x64, but I can not confirm if these had any issues with my setup as I never ran Vista on this PC. I am currently running the drivers available with Windows 7 which are much better but still have this UI lock up on large file network copy issue. Finally, a very weird thing happened today. Copying large files to the Samba share started working perfectly fine. However the issue returned as soon as I restarted the system. Several restarts later the issue persists and hasn't magically dissipated again so it seems to have been a one off fluke. The inconsistency is troubling.
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September 3rd, 2009 7:08am

I also have been having issues lately with my L1 adapter. I can trigger it reliably by trying to upload a file attachment in gmail. Every single time I've done that - today at least - the adapter goes down, and reports "General failures". Very strange. If I stay away from uploading to gmail, things seem to keep working.ben
September 11th, 2009 11:19pm

I've solved this at least for my case. Turn off "Task Offload". It was KILLING me because I setup iSCSI and couldn't do a THING! Actually that wasn't a freeze, that was just a total stop of TCP traffic. VERY odd. I would start a copy, then all TCP traffic would stop after about 20 seconds. Everything. No browsing, ping, nothing. Turned off Task Offload (also turned off Link Layer Topology (driver and responder) and all was just fine after that. No more freezing, no more TCP drops. Good luck.
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September 18th, 2009 2:49am

My problem seems to have been different to JuniorJr as Task offloading changes did not aleviate it. However, the problem seems to have gone away with the latest optional update for the Atheros L1 Controller. Hope there's no more issues with this in the future. Cheers guys.
September 30th, 2009 4:01am

Cool, problem is happening to me as well, copying from Win 7 RTM 64 bit to a Win 7 RC 32 bit - same network card. I thught I installed the new drivers last night, Ill reboot and try again (working from RC Win 7 at the moment as RTM has hung :( )UPDATE: Installing the latest drivers from http://partner.atheros.com/Drivers.aspxhas resolved the issue. I did have a 100% hang rate when trying to copy files to another PC, but it hasnt failed yet.
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October 21st, 2009 10:59am

I wish someone from Microsoft would challenge Atheros about this. My own thread on this topic is still ongoing (and I always use the latest Atheros L1e drivers).http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistaapps/thread/9555a996-1301-4f68-b9d3-82a87fc6ba46
October 21st, 2009 1:14pm

I was suffering this issue as well. Grabbed the most recent Atheros driver off of Windows Update and it took care of the issue w/o even a reboot. My particular issue was any file copy off the system to Vista hosts on the same LAN - would hard lock the UI when I copied and pasted files manually, and would do the same when a laptop on the network connected to grab printer drivers for a local printer I'm sharing.
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October 27th, 2009 9:39pm

Atheros L1 driver 2.4.7.10 is bad software.Disable Task Offload in the driver property advanced tab.This willstop, die or halt your network.
November 13th, 2009 2:59pm

However, the problem seems to have gone away with the latest optional update for the Atheros L1 Controller. Hope there's no more issues with this in the future. Cheers guys. After weeks of trying to resolve this issue, it appears that this was the fix I was looking for. I have the same NIC and Windows 7 Ultimate was freezing copying large files to my Windows 2008 R2 server (and even another PC running Windows 7 Ultimate). I couldn't find the driver through Windows Update; I had to go to device manager, open the NIC, switch to Devices tab, click Update Driver, and click to search automatically. Thank you so much! Carl.
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June 6th, 2010 2:01pm

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