[Solved] Viscosity 1.4.2 Crashes Windows 8 x64 Enterprise N

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tridy

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Post by tridy » Sun Dec 23, 2012 4:14 am
Hi.

My computer crashes while using Viscosity 1.4.2 (1178) with Windows 8 x64 Enterprise N.

I could start, connect and use Viscosity but after some time (it could be a screensaver coming up, screen dimming or similar; for 2 times it was when I was leaving computer for 5-10 minutes), the blue screen comes and says that my network card (Gigabit Atheros l1c63x64.sys) driver caused the crash:

Image

I assume it has to do with Viscosity since when I uninstall it, the problem disappears.

I am using Viscosity according to ipredator instructions.

BTW, is Windows 8 x64 officially supported at this point?

Thanks
Last edited by tridy on Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:06 am, edited 3 times in total.

Eric

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Post by Eric » Sun Dec 23, 2012 4:11 pm
Hi tridy,

Thanks for reporting this, but unfortunately this is probably not specifically caused by Viscosity, even if it might not be helping the problem. The Atheros chipset drivers have been having issues since Win8s launch and people have been reporting problems from simply no connection to blue screens. Some have solved it by updating their drivers from Qualcomm or Gigabyte, others have had to reinstall Win8 altogether.

The Qualcomm drivers are available directly here - http://www.qca.qualcomm.com/corporate/c ... p?nav1=146. If they don't work, you will need to contact Gigabyte.

The only real way to find out is to capture some mini dumps after a blue screen. How to do this is here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315263. You're welcome to post these up and we can have a quick look.

If you could post some more information about your computer, this may help as well to find the cause.

As a side note, we have been running Win8 here with Viscosity for close to 6 months now on two completely different sets of hardware and have not experienced any problems.

Windows 8 is officially supported.

Regards,

Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

tridy

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Post by tridy » Mon Dec 24, 2012 8:23 pm
Eric wrote:
...
The Atheros chipset drivers have been having issues since Win8s launch and people have been reporting problems from simply no connection to blue screens. Some have solved it by updating their drivers from Qualcomm or Gigabyte, others have had to reinstall Win8 altogether.
...
Eric
Hi, Eric.

Thanks for your reply. I downloaded the drivers from qualcomm website and even though they already have been installed, and setup process asked me to modify/repair/uninstall, I used the repair option, restarted the computer, and now it has been running for 16 hours without any problems. So, whether is is the OS that alters the drivers in some strange way or there is something wrong with the drivers but you are right that it is not the problem of Viscosity.

If, somehow, the problem comes back, I will post the memory dump.

Thanks for your help!

tridy

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Post by tridy » Fri Dec 28, 2012 4:22 am
It has been running ok for a couple of days now but crashed a couple of minutes ago with the same message. I am attaching the dmp file to this message.

At the same time, I will try to run VPN connection via build in Windows 8 client to see if I can get the same crash in a couple of days.
Attachments
122712-10343-01.zip
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tridy

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Post by tridy » Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:26 pm
Alright, I was running with Win8 built in VPN client for 3 days or so without any problems.

At the same time, Qualcomm Atheros has updated driver for AR8151 to 2.1.0.13 (even though the package says AR813x_AR815x_v2.1.0.14_WHQL.rar, the actual driver for W8 x64 is DriverVer = 12/14/2012,2.1.0.13). I will try installing this driver and using Viscosity 1.4.2 again to see if the problem is still there.

Happy New Year!

Eric

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Post by Eric » Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:27 pm
Hi tridy,

Happy New Year to you as well!

Let us know how the updated driver goes. The driver you currently have installed is much older:

L1C63x64 L1C63x64.sys Fri Sep 21 16:34:46 2012 (505C0A86)

Looking at the dump, it appears OpenVPN is causing the BSOD to occur, but the dump report seems adamant that the driver is the problem. OpenVPN is most likely just being caught in the cross fire using the Ethernet at a bad time. Forcing Viscosity to use OpenVPN 2.3 may alleviate the problem too as it has undergone a lot of changes since 2.2 (This is available using the OpenVPN version drop down in the Advanced tab of the Preferences window), but 2.3 may not work at all with iPredator, so see how the updated driver goes first.

If the updated driver doesn't work, the next plausible step would be a fresh reinstall of Windows 8, as this seems to have resolved the issue for others receiving bluescreens with the same driver.

Regards,

Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

tridy

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Post by tridy » Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:59 pm
Hi, Eric.

Thanks for the reply.

I got this new notebook a couple of weeks ago and it came with the pre-installed drivers. After installing Viscosity and having problems, I downloaded and installed new drivers (2.1.0.12) and got the crash after that anyways. That could revert the driver to the "factory" version.

After I have updated to the latest driver (2.1.0.13), it has been running non-stop for 3 days now with almost no activity during the day and heavy activity during the evenings, including file transfers and video streaming, so it seems to be stable now.

If I will get any problems, I will try the OpenVPN option that you mentioned.

I will post back after one week or so to report the progress.

regards

tridy

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Post by tridy » Mon Jan 14, 2013 8:22 am
Got 2 more crashes during one week. It was not stable, so I reinstalled W8. Now it seems to work alright (even though I manager to get a BSOD from Outpost Security and reported them but that's a different story). So far, 3 days without a crash and I am running on "native" Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.30) Windows 8 driver version 2.0.0.4.

The current Qualcomm driver package version is 2.1.0.14 (which has actually x64 W8 driver version 2.1.0.13 inside) and the question is whether I should use it and update or just leave it as it is since it works? You have mentioned that other users reported problems and after reinstalling Windows the problem was solved. Have those users updated the driver? Would you say it is safe to update the drivers?

Thanks

Eric

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Post by Eric » Mon Jan 14, 2013 6:00 pm
Hi tridy,

In my opinion I would leave it be and not update if the problem isn't reoccurring, I'm not sure if others updated the drivers again though, most of the issues cropping up around the web haven't had responses unfortunately.

Regards,

Eric
Eric Thorpe
Viscosity Developer

Web: http://www.sparklabs.com
Support: http://www.sparklabs.com/support
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sparklabs

tridy

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Post by tridy » Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:07 pm
Thanks for your help Eric.

I think it should be alright from now on. If any of the problems would to re-appear, I will get back ;)

The last thought: another thing that could have played a role is that I had Windows 8 x64 pre-installed on the computer that I got. So I actually reinstalled the Enterprise version on top (I was afraid that I would not be able to setup UEFI properly)and that could trigger the problem. The last reinstall that solved the problem was a "clean" install with the removal of partitions and formatting and so on.
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