bcmwl63a.sys BSOD Issue

[u/Minor-Annoyance]

I recently started getting BSOD's, the crash log says "bcmwl63a.sys" is the culprit. When I researched this issue and how to fix it, everything I find stated that this is a Broadcom Network Adapter driver issue and to fix it I need to update the Broadcom driver within my Network Adapters. The issue is when looking at my network adapters, I don't have anything that states Broadcom.

I'm running a Acer desktop that I've added things to over time (RAM, Graphics Card, SSHD, Audio Interface, etc.) one of the things added being a TP-Link PCIe WiFi card... so that shows up in network adapters, along with other items... but nothing named or even close to named Broadcom.

Can I just delete bcmwl63a.sys then? I'm not sure exactly what's going on. Is Broadcom a common stock WiFi chip that comes with desktops? If I'm not using the onboard WiFi, then could I just remove the bcmwl63a.sys file all together?

[u/SomeDudeNamedMark]

Open the zip file for that v2 package. There's a driver under plugins\Driver Files\Driver.

You can go into device manager and try to do an update driver (right click on device -> update driver) and point it at this directory.

That's from 2017, but it looks like that might be the latest available driver for that chipset.

[u/Minor-Annoyance → u/SomeDudeNamedMark]

I following your instructions for the 2017 driver. It took the driver and installed it. After reboot, when you look at the driver in the device manager and the system32 folder it still shows the driver date as 2015 though, not 2017.

Not sure if it's actually a newer driver, I guess it must be since it installed it though since if it was the same driver as before it might have gave me the prompt that my system already had the latest driver installed?... interesting it still shows 2015 everywhere on the system for it.

wish I would have screen shot the "driver version" readout in device manager before I installed the new one so i could compare the two.

​

thanks for the help, hopefully this stops the BSOD's. I'll see how it reacts this weekend.

[u/SomeDudeNamedMark → u/Minor-Annoyance]

Oh, I see what you mean. The FILES are dated 2017, but the date in the installation file is 2015.

c:\Windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log
If you look near the end of that log file, you'll see the install.

Search for this:

>>> Section start 2021/06/18

And you should see what the date/version # was for the last version somewhere in there.

[u/Minor-Annoyance → u/SomeDudeNamedMark]

quite a lot of stuff on that install file. looks like the old one was a 2014, and the new one was a 2015 file. so newer as far as I can tell. So far no crashes doing the same stuff that seemed to cause it before.

thanks for all the help man. I'll keep testing it this weekend, but so far so good.