Driver_irql_not_less_or_equal while connecting to VPN

[Corsaiga]

Hey, this is my first post here, and I have looked at other posts with the same BSOD, but none seem to have the solution to my issue.
This Laptop is a Dell running WinXP. When trying to connect to the VPN via NetVanta (connected with a Verzizon air card), the BSOD appears with: Driver_irql_not_less_or_equal STOP 0x000000D1.
another peculiar aspect of this BSOD is when it begins the physical memory dump, it says it is dumping physical memory to disk: 1 then disk: 2 then disk: 3 and so on continuously. I let it go up to 75 over the course of about 45 minutes before force shutting down.
after looking at other posts, I saw that .dmp files can be used to diagnose the problem, and the last 4-5 are usually requested. well upon opening the mini dump folder, I only found one file, so it is attached (not sure how helpful that will be.) if you need any further information, just ask. Thanks!

 

[Route44]

The error is 0xD1 and these are usually caused by drivers. In your case the OS driver ndiswan.sys was cited as the cause of your system crashes. The issue with OS drivers is that usually they are too general to be of much help but your's may be the exception.

ndiswan.sys functions for networking or your NIC. You could try to do one of two things:

1. Uninstall and reinstall your NIC drivers.

2. Update the NIC drivers.

* Get back to us with the results.

 

[Corsaiga]

Thanks for the response!
I have completely reinstalled the NIC driver, unfortunately, my boss is traveling today and took our last air card, so I have no way of testing the VPN until tomorrow. I will test it first thing in the morning and post the results here.
Thanks again!

 

[Corsaiga]

Hey, I reinstalled the NIC drivers and gave VPN another shot. Unfortunately the same BSOD appeared at the same time. The only difference is that now the physical memory dump completes almost instantly. I also have a .dmp in the minidump folder every time it BSODs now, so I have attached the last 3.
Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Route44]

Hmmm, all three errors are the same 0xD1 and all point to ndiswan.sys as the issue.

Did you re-install the NIC drivers from the CD that came with the laptop?

 

[Corsaiga]

No, I used the latest drivers from the dell website. We tried a different VPN client, ShrewSoft, and that one worked. We plan to just switch completely to this one since Netvanta is outdated anyway. Thanks for your help though!
is it possible that one of the windows updates did something to conflict with Netvanta? Since this laptop was out on the job, working fine for months, then just started getting this BSOD. Ironically, today I loaded two other computers that i just freshly installed XP on with Netvanta, and they both started getting the same BSOD at the same time. We are now replacing Netvanta with ShrewSoft.
Thanks again for all your help.