So, we had an issue on our desktop where we were using a Netgear wireless device to access the internet, as the onboard network adaptor had failed. Purchased and installed a network card and I was able to restore wired network connectivity.
So, after few months, decided to uninstall the Netgear wireless device driver & application. And after I did that, now suddenly I lost internet access even though I was connected over the wired port. One interesting note was that normally the network adapter settings shows the network connection as some name, but now it just said “Ethernet -> Network”. The adapter was working, because if I unplug the cable – it reflected the same. But I had no internet access.
After trying many things, I finally came upon a posting that caused me to try the thing that worked. Right click on the network adapter and select properties. From the list of entries (like Client for Microsoft Networks, Internet Protocol Version 4, Microsoft LLDP Protocol Driver etc.), if there is an entry that states “JumpStart wireless filter driver”, turn it off. When you click Ok, you may get a message stating something else may be turned off too. That is ok.
Now, your internet should work.
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So, what is this jumpstart wireless filter?
The posting that gave me a clue what to do, just randomly stated to turn off settings in the Adapter properties screen. I wanted to know which setting caused the problem, and I found it by turning off one at a time. Once I found it was the jumpstart wireless filter, I did some research to find out what I was turning off, so I know what effect it may have on the system. Turns out, JumpStart is a protocol developed by a company – Atheros – and released to the open source community. Additionally, Atheros jumpstart wireless protocol & driver is included in some wireless devices (like the Netgear device above). Reading about it, it seems it allows a more “quick & user friendly way” to establish a wireless WPA2 connection with your router. Although, recent articles show hackers using jumpstart to actually hack into any secure WiFi – scary and topic for another post.
I have uninstalled NetGear before, why did it cause this problem this time?
Another question that was bothering me. While I could not recreate the scenario to prove it – it would need me to reinstall a machine – my speculation is that I tried uninstalling the driver as a non-administrator. While it prompted me for the administrator password – some embedded uninstaller for the jumpstart protocol did not complete. In the past, I have always logged in as administrator to uninstall (or install) any program or driver. Again – this is just an educated theory. If I can prove it, I will update this post.
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Hope that this post saves somebody some time.