H170m pro4 freezes when there's network activity

Will look into doing that.  I actually ordered the board before Xmas as a little gift to myself.  Didn't really get around to tinkering with it till just a few weeks ago when I started running into issues.  Will have to contact ASRock directly to return to them as it's outside of the 30 day return policy with Newegg.

Also, brought the entire box with me to work today and connected it to my work network and got the exact same result - freezing immediately once there is network activity.  Tells me it doesn't have anything to do with the networking equipment at my house.

p3matty wrote: Sorry I only understood about half of that.  I have comcast (xfinity) cable internet.  Unsure about overlapping IPs, and unsure how to determine that (I have an asus "dark knight" n66 router).  Don't know how many IPs my ISP allows, but why would they limit it? How would I go about assigning this computer a free IP? Thanks again for the help.

PM'ing you after this post.

Ahhhh, home theater


What ISP is it you have there ? Cable, or PPoE?

Any overlapped IPs being assigned in/by anything network related? Have you tried looking in the routers interface for issues? Does your ISP allow unlimited private IPs generated on your home network?

Assign this computer a "free' IP in the Windows Intel applet then reboot.

p3matty wrote: Thanks again for the thoughts.  So last night I again did a fresh install of windows 7 (actually this time from a USB stick rather than the original disc).  The USB version had some updates slipstreamed into it - including miscrosoft usb 3.0 drivers and microsoft NVMe drivers, but the install still didn't see the NVMe drive as an option to install to.  So instead I again installed to the ssd.  That went smoothly and I was up and running in a few minutes.  Installed first the INF driver from the motherboard disc, rebooted, and then installed the ME drivers as you suggested.  From there I got the rest of the drivers installed from the link you provided, with the network drivers last.  Same results - once I connected a network cable and tried to do anything online (either windows update or going to a website) the computer would totally freeze just as it had before.  Had to manually shut down and restart.  It did this a few times.  I could do anything else on the computer - like play a hand of solitaire, but once I tried to do anything online it would freeze immediately.  So I installed drivers for a usb network adapter I had, disabled the wired network adapter and connected to my wifi - worked like a charm, though it was very slow as the dongle would only pick up my 2.4ghz signal, which was pretty weak.  Anyway, I was able to download and install a few rounds of Windows Updates (did a big run overnight).  So this morning I unplugged the dongle and enabled the wired adapter again - same results, immediate freeze up. Any further suggestions would be most helpful!!  Thanks!

Very strange, I've never had that happen with an Intel network chip or network driver. I assume you are using the Intel Lan driver ver:21.1 installer, from the disk or your board's Windows 7 download page?

A different network cable as suggested above would be worth a try, definitely.

When you are installing the Intel 21.1 network driver, at one point you should see a screen like this:



We can see above that the entry for Intel Advanced Network Services is checked by default, or it normally is. I've found that using that option, which is meant more for enterprise type installations, does not work well with PCs. The options in the Device Manager entry for the Intel network chips are different (fewer of them) when that item is checked. That causes those options and others to be available through a command line interface that is not as user friendly as the Device Manager entry is.

My point is, I always uncheck the Intel Advanced Network Services option when installing the Intel network driver. I cannot guarantee this will fix your freezing issue, but it is worth trying, and you won't be missing anything by not using that option.

When you run the Intel network driver installer again, it will ask you what you want to do. Just select Modify, and you'll see the screen I included above. Just uncheck the Intel Advanced Network Services option, and finish the installation.

About the NVMe SSD not being recognized. Before you start the Win 7 installation, go into the UEFI/BIOS, and check the boot order. You must have and select the entry for the Win 7 installation media that is, "UEFI: <flash drive name>". That entry may not have been the default selected entry.

During the Win 7 installation, if you select the Custom option, you should see the NVMe SSD as a choice for installing Windows, if the NVMe driver fix to Windows 7 is working correctly.

If that alone does not work, in the Boot screen find the CSM option at the bottom of the screen. Open the CSM sub options, and find the Launch Storage OpROM Policy option, and set it to UEFI Only. Save and Exit the UEFI/BIOS, and go right back in and check the Boot Order and be sure the "UEFI: <flash drive name>" entry is selected.

Early Windows 7 installation images are known to have a bug in the location of the EFI boot loader program, which had to be fixed in the past to allow UEFI booting to work. I hope the updated Win 7 installation image you're using also has that fix from MSoft. Difficult to know if it will or not.







Edited by parsec - 23 Feb 2017 at 10:47pm