The blue screen (of death, as some call it) has become a classic since it made its first appearance at the Windows 98 presentation ceremony with Bill Gates at the time of the announcement of Plug & Play technology, technology that showed us how as soon as a peripheral was connected, it worked without the need to install drivers. Over the years, it has evolved to show a large number of errors, such as the one related to rtwlane.sys.
The first blue screens hardly offered information related to the problem that caused them, beyond several codes that did not invite us to find out what the problem was related to. Fortunately, that has changed, and in both Windows 10 and Windows 11, issues related to this screen display much more information to help us find a solution.
What causes the error
This time, we are going to focus on fixing the rtwlane.sys error that causes Windows to show a blue screen. This error is usually displayed along with the code DRIVERS IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL. As we can well deduce from the name of this error, this is related to the malfunction of the driver / controller of one of the components of the equipment.
On this occasion, it is the driver that manages the operation of the wireless network card from the manufacturer Realtek. The solution to this error is to install the most up-to-date drivers, although, unfortunately, the error is not always solved.
How to fix rtwlane.sys error
Although initially, the simplest solution is to update the drivers, on many occasions, the solution to this error is not so easy.
Update network driver
The first thing we must do to solve the rtwlane.sys error that shows a blue screen of death in Windows is to access the device manager and update the driver that manages it through Windows. This problem is related to the use of an old driver that does not allow the network card to be managed correctly, so updating the driver should solve it.
To update the driver, in the Windows search box, type Device Manager and click on the first result. Next, click on Network adapters to show all the network connections of our computer. Next, hover over Realtek xxx Ethernet, right-click, and select Update driver.
At that point, Windows will download the latest Realtek network card driver available from their servers and the problem should be fixed.
Download motherboard drivers
Realtek has become in recent years one of the usual manufacturers of sound cards and network devices integrated into most motherboards. However, the technical support it offers is worse than unfortunate, since from its website, we can only download the generic drivers that never solve any problem and leave the support in the hands of the manufacturers of the motherboards that integrate their products.
The manufacturers of motherboards, offer through their web page, the necessary drivers for each model of motherboard, drivers that allow us to get the most out of each of the components that compose it, such as the sound card, the connection of network, USB ports, processor, integrated graphics card and so on.
With the release of each new version of Windows, a version that involves a significant change in terms of features and operation, manufacturers update the drivers section of the board to adapt them to the new features.
If we want to get rid of the rtwlane.sys error, we must visit the website of the manufacturer of our motherboard and download the most updated drivers depending on the version of Windows that we have installed. Realtek drivers for each motherboard may be different, so the first thing we should do is search the support page for our motherboard in order to download the officially compatible drivers.
After installing the drivers from the motherboard manufacturer, you need to restart your computer.
Use the official Realtek drivers
Although the support offered by Realtek to its users is quite regrettable, leaving this task to the motherboard manufacturers that incorporate their products, it is not always the solution, since we can find ourselves with old equipment whose manufacturer has completely forgotten that it was ever made the motherboard for our team.
The solution to this problem is to visit the realtek support website and download the generic drivers for our computer, the network card drivers, which are not the same as the sound card drivers. On this website, we must look for the drivers of the version of the operating system that we have installed to download the corresponding version.
If we have any doubts, we can download the Diagnostic Program for Win7/Win8/Win10/Win11 application to detect the model of our computer’s network card and, from the application itself, download the most up-to-date drivers.
After installing the drivers, it is necessary to restart the computer, otherwise the problem may still be present.
If it is a branded laptop or desktop
The operation of a piecemeal desktop is not the same as a laptop or desktop from a specific manufacturer. Units assembled by parts have no choice but to go to the component manufacturer’s website to be able to download the most up-to-date drivers at all times.
However, the already assembled equipment, such as those offered by HP or Dell, are accompanied by software created by the manufacturer where all the official drivers necessary to be able to take full advantage of the device are found.
Although in most cases it is not necessary to use them, since Windows is capable of recognizing them and putting them into operation, when the computer has operating problems or shows an error in the Device Manager panel, the best and only way to solve them It happens by visiting the manufacturer’s support website and downloading the drivers corresponding to the model of our equipment.
Although our equipment is old, surely we will find the corresponding drivers. It is not recommended to install the drivers of any other equipment, since the rest of the components of the equipment will probably not match those of our PC, so it is more than likely that our copy of Windows will become unstable and impossible to manage.
Windows troubleshooter
The problem with the rtwlane.sys driver should be fixed by now after installing the latest drivers, either from the motherboard manufacturer’s website or from the Realtek website. However, there is always the possibility that the problem still exists.
The last solution that we would have left to try to find a solution to this error before reinstalling Windows from scratch, is to use the Windows tool that will help us find and solve hardware operating problems on our computer. To start it, press the keyboard shortcut Win + R and type
msdt.exe -id DeviceDiagnostic
Next, click on next and wait for the detection of computer problems to finish. This process consumes quite a lot of resources, so it is recommended not to do other tasks on the computer, as they could mislead the wizard.
Start in safe mode
If no matter how hard we try, every time we start the computer, after a short time, the blue screen that refers to the rtwlane.sys driver is displayed, we will never be able to try the solutions that we have shown you in this article. The solution for by starting the computer in safe mode and using an ethernet cable instead of the Wi-Fi connection
Windows safe mode allows you to start the computer with the basic drivers so that the computer works. In this way, the computer will be able to start up without problems and we will have the possibility to download and install the corresponding drivers to finally find the solution to this problem.
reinstall windows
If, after trying all the solutions that we have shown you in this article, the problem is still not solved, to download that it really is a hardware problem, we will be forced to reinstall Windows from scratch. Once we have reinstalled Windows, the first thing we must do is download the official drivers for our motherboard, the official ones from the manufacturer of our equipment or the ones that Realtek makes available to the rest of the equipment.
