Dear
GeneralHiningII, sir!
I apologize for my considerable tardiness in following up; I hope you will forgive me...
You see, I was about to respond when a new and possibly related issue arose, but since the new issue isn't quite a BSOD I feel I should write up the new problem elsewhere on this forum, which I shall do later.
However, I consider the original problem described in my OP to now be apparently SOLVED!
And, to my great delight, replacing my USB wireless adapter was
completely unnecessary! (As an aside related to your suggested alternative of laying an Ethernet cable approximately 200+ feet across my house, I explained in an earlier reply that "Stringing an Ethernet cable isn't practical", and simply isn't feasible. Also, the information on potential problems with wireless USB under Windows 7 you referred me to I now know to be strictly related to early Win7 users' problems with wireless USB device drivers that were designed for Vista or were otherwise premature. As of now, the end of 2012, to the best of my research there do not appear to be ANY remaining general problems using USB wireless adapters with Windows 7
as long as the driver and software are both Windows 7 compatible and of relatively recent vintage) However, in future responses to others who may find themselves in an otherwise insurmountable difficulties, a third option is to consider powerline networking).
The solution to my OP was found in your recommendation to -- one way or another -- apply Service Pack 1. Because that failed me scores if not hundreds of times previously, as I proposed I performed a non-destructive re-install of Windows 7. (Note trying to use both slipstreamed SP1 and tying to use an install image that already contained SP1
failed utterly, because neither will permit a non-destructive re-install unless SP1 is already installed(!)). After that non-destructive re-install of Windows 7 without SP1 succeeded, I immediately applied the SP1 update, which also completed successfully - hooray!
After that, I never experienced the problem described in my OP again, even without changing out my extraordinarily great Netgear WNA3100 USB wireless adapter!
The last thing left for me to do was remove Microsoft Security Essentials (which I installed at your request), and then return my original commercial anti-malware and firewall software.
HOWEVER, a few days
before doing that, the new problem I mentioned started occurring
IMMEDIATELY after applying the most recent set of Windows 7 updates from Microsoft. Sigh!
The sole symptom of this new problem is that after those latest Win7 Updates (released and applied on Thursday, December 13, 2012), and ONLY after watching Netflix streaming videos for between 1 and 3 hours, my laptop just ups and powers-down suddenly and instantly, in less than 2 seconds flat! There's no warning and no indication whatsoever, no message, no visible changes, no blue screen, no crash log, no nothing! The laptop was plugged in and running solely on AC. The other device plugged in to the outlet (a Sony HDTV) did NOT power down, so I'm certain this wasn't a power failure. This has happened at least six times since Dec 13, and immediately after the first time, I installed two software temperature monitoring programs, and they both show that neither the CPU cores, the GPU cores, nor the disk drive temperatures were high in the least. The history showed the highest temp was when one of the CPU cores reached 71c, yet the manufacturer states the CPUs can accommodate up to 95c safely.
I've run the laptop in normal Windows 7 mode with Firefox running but
without watching Netflix for more than 24 hours straight with no problems at all, so there's nothing wrong with either Windows or Firefox. The sudden power-downs
ONLY occur after watching Netflix streaming movies for a period of time, but note most importantly that this NEVER happened before the Microsoft update set of 13-Dec-2012, so there are strong reasons to believe that both Netflix streaming -and- one or more of those MS updates are interacting in such as way as to cause this inexplicable power-downs, but no heat problem is involved.
The event logs don't appear to show anything obvious to me to explain this bizarre problem, but I'm no expert on Win7's event logging system. The one thing that looked potentially troubling to me was the vast number of repeated error message that reads as follows:
Error 3 Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing
"Microsoft Security Client OOBE" stopped due to the following error: 0xC000000D"
When I looked that up, it turned out to be somehow related to Microsoft's Windows 7 Anti-malware system software. I then guessed that this might in turn be related to the Microsoft Security Essentials software I installed at your suggestion to replace my commercial malware & firewall software in order to isolate the problem described in my OP (above). Therefore, after a few days of experiencing these sudden power-downs, I uninstalled MS Security Essentials and re-installed my commercial products.
Unfortunately, that made no difference at all. Thus, I have to write up a new OP to seek assistance on this new problem...
Sorry if you found all that to be too verbose!
In closing though, I wish to express my genuine gratitude for your kind assistance and knowledge,
GeneralHiningII!
I hope you enjoy your holidays!