Vista - BSOD - probably related to Network Store Interface Service

Hi!

I am currently facing an issue with constant BSOD a few seconds after Windows startup. After eliminating most services in safe mode, it seems that whenever I start the OS with Network Store Interface Service disabled, the system works fine (put aside minor inconvenience of totally lacking network connectivity).

Last night I was troubleshooting a problem of a game not being able to connect to a server. Following the FAQs I changed some network card properties (disabled offload for TCP,UDP and IPv4). That issue was finally resolved by adding the application as allowed to Windows Firewall settings. Everything worked fine then. The crashes started after reboot.

I tried uninstalling network card, which caused all the settings to reset to default when it was reinstalled by PnP, but it did not help.

Also, sometimes the system would seem stable after startup, but simple right click on network icon in system tray triggered BSOD in 100% cases.

BSOD info:
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION, 0x0000003b
Exception code: 0xc0000005

I am running Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1.

Hello Bhimasena, and welcome to the forums,

A quick search around points to this error being caused by a misbehaved driver trying to access protected memory, most examples have pointed to graphics drivers but could of course be related to Network drivers,

you may want to try to get the latest drivers from the network card manufacturers website, the database used by MS is often out of date, as things move so quickly in drivers at the moment, so the update drivers option in device manager will often say drivers are the latest when newer items exist,

if possible I would also try to fit an alternate NIC temporarily to see if that solves the issue (that does assume of course that you have access to such things)

this site is a useful resource for BSOD errors

Troubleshooting Windows STOP Messages

Not a nice simple answer I'm afraid but hopefully may point in the right direction

Hi, Nigel!
Cheers for the welcome and the speedy reply!

I am highly sceptical about the possibility of driver version being the cause for the crashes. I have looked up m/b manufacturer site for LAN drivers, the latest version was issued in March 2007, so the driver version that I have istalled can not be much older (it was a newest revision of the m/b). I am not able to check it for sure at this moment since it is my home PC that is failing, and I am at work now.

Now, could the driver "become" corrupt? Could reinstalling it from manufacturer CDs help? There was not a single issue with network connectivity on this PC since I bought it some 16 months ago.

Hi Bhimasena

Agree with the drivers unlikely to be that different, though is unusual that nothing has changed in that long a time.

Was not totally clear from your original post that this is a recent issue. just thinking that if it is only a few days that a system restore to before it started may be the way to go.

another option would be a System File check.

System Files - SFC Command

I always use the /verifyonly switch first so as to be careful

Another thing to check is MS updates around the time the issue started, It's not unknown for these to cause problems with previously working systems. may be worth checking the MS update site for any Known issues with your hardware and particular updates, although a system restore should solve these issues they will probably come back when update re-installs them

Any file may become corrupted for all sorts of reasons so if the above is not possible then a complete un-install of the drivers and a re-install from the disk or manufacturers website may cure things. Have had too many issues with MS driver store to totally trust it.

hope this helps

The issue is very recent: as I wrote, it all happened after I touched some network adapter settings last night.

I was not aware of SFC utility, will sure give it a try.
Is there something similar to check registry integrity (built-in tool, not a third party product)?

If all that does not help I think I could try repair installation as well.

Hi Bhimasena

Not sure of an inbuilt tool for registry check but there may well be something included in the repair console on the install DVD.

if it is that recent I think a System restore is the way to go as this will repair the registry as well as any other glitches. obviously when doing a restore the quicker you can do this the less likely is the Collateral damage to other items which you may have changed since the restore point chosen.

Alas, I think I have restore points disabled. Please, don't ask me why
Maybe after all it will teach me something...

Hi Bhimasena,

Yes that does make things a little more difficult, as any registry integrity checker would also rely on the System Restore Data

can only suggest the SFC and the re-install of the drivers options

if you do have to go with a repair install have a look at Shawn's tutorial which gives a lot of useful advice and info and should help make it as painless as possible.

Repair Install For Vista

hope you get everything sorted

Yeah, I have already browsed through it.
Thanks for you help!

An update:

After all it appears that the drivers I had installed were indeed from MS.
I have updated them. However I do not think the problem was with the network adapter after all - the problem remained even when I disabled it in BIOS.

The problem was finally resolved when I uninstalled the WAN Miniport (SSTP) device (probably disabling it would have been enough).