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Recurring BSOD Caused by onboard NIC spanning 2 PCs
Hello,
I was having a lot of blue screens about a year ago with a PC I had built related to the network adapters (wired, onboard adapters). Whenever I would launch a VPN or I would use VM software which would either use NAT or something similar to establish a network connection in my virtual machines, I would get a blue screen. At the same time on a separate PC I would get blue screens when doing the same thing. Without finding much help on the topic I resigned myself to a completely new build since it had been about 3-4 years since I had built the previous PC.
I built a new PC, and everything was fine for about 6 months. I upgraded my Windows 7 to Windows 10, and whether I used VPN or VMs, everything was fine. Now I am starting to see the same behavior on my Windows 10 machine (the network adapter I amusing is a wired, onboard Atheros NIC). The other machine in question currently has linux installed and runs my Plex server, so I don't really do anything else with it. The only piece of hardware that is the same from the 2 builds is my power supply.
I have attached the required files for posting BSODs, and previously I had tried attaching my NIC to my internal router and even the main router from FIOS itself without much difference. I can use a VPN now sometimes for a while, it seems very random and honestly very hard to diagnose (which is why I am asking for help from some of the experts here).
I am trying to figure out what could be causing this, and losing a lot of my hair because of it (well, I claim that's why I'm losing my hair anyway). I do not want to buy a new PC and since I upgraded from a MSDN copy of Windows 7 to 10, a clean install will not work for me as I already shelled out for 2 copies of Windows 10 Pro in my house, I am not keen on forking over money for another).
Could this be related to power somehow?
Should I ask Verizon for another router when no other network devices in my house (I have 2 other windows 10 PCs that don't run VPNs, but nonetheless have no problems)?
Any help is appreciated. I have searched high and low without finding a distinct cause as to why 2 completely separate machines would have the same problem. It's gotta be something that they had in common, right? (why I am asking about power and the router that sits between me and FIOS).
The problem started out like this on my prior machine, only happening infrequently and then became so bad I could not connect via a wired connection at all without a blue screen. The blue screens are 95% related to the network, but some other random ones have happened (which is to be expected I would imagine).
Thank you in advance for anyone able to shed some light on this.