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Wireless adapter causing Windows 8.1 to deactivate?

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  • Windows 8
  • Netgear
  • Wireless Adapter
Last response: in Windows 8
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September 3, 2014 2:51:27 PM

Never thought I'd be saying this, but somehow, it appears as though my Netgear N600 USB wireless adapter is causing my (fully legal) copy of Windows to deactivate.

To explain, I had been running a Rosewill N900 PCIe wireless card. This card never seemed to agree with my home setup (loss of signal, frequently crawling speeds), so I picked up a Netgear USB adapter as a temporary solution. As I did this, I noticed "Windows 8.1 Build 9600" in the corner of my desktop. "What in the hell...?", I thought. My Windows install (which had been activated for about 8 months or so) was deactivated and would not take my product key. If I switch back to the Rosewill adapter, it immediately shows Windows is active. I can literally toggle activation on and off by switching wireless adapters.

Anyone have ANY idea why this might be happening?

More about : wireless adapter causing windows deactivate

September 7, 2014 1:49:11 PM

Intel i7 4770k
Asus Maximus Hero VII Z97
8gb G.skill RAM
Corsair HX850
GTX 780
128gb SSD / 1tb platter
Windows 8.1 64-bit

The strange thing is, I've used the adapter before and it worked fine. It was before the Rosewill adapter, though.
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a b * Windows 8
September 7, 2014 2:39:31 PM

I can't find a single other instance of this happening to anyone. Here are my thoughts, which may or may not result in a solution but it can't hurt to try.

Check the BIOS version of your motherboard against the most recent version on the ASUS website for your board. BIOS issues can cause a variety of otherwise unexplainable issues.

Go into device manager and under View select show hidden devices. Go down to the network adapters category and double click to expand it. Right click on any listed wireless adapters and select uninstall and then check the box for uninstall drivers. Do this for each listed item and then reboot. Reinstall the drivers for your device upon rebooting to windows.

Finally, if the problem remains after doing the above you might need to reactivate with the adapter installed. This should be fairly simple using the following procedure:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/24636-activate-win...
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