Everything was pretty smooth for my upgrade to Windows 8.1 except for the annoying death of my network card after a few minutes. The network connection would disappear and attempts to restart the adapter would fail. A restart would be necessary to get back some network access for a while. And even restarting wouldn’t happen easily:
I would name this the “Blue Screen of Unhappy Emoticon” but I see other people have already called it the “Frowny Face Blue Screen” which sounds a lot better.
The bugcheck in k57nd60a was: 0x0000009f (0x0000000000000004, 0x000000000000012c, 0xffffe00003907040, 0xfffff8039a9b09a0). 0x0000009f is DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE which is only of interest to a software developer.
I found an answer mentioning k57nd60a although a different bugcheck (Win 8 driver_irql_not_less_or_equal k57nd60a.sys) on the Internet which helped. Not the “run CHKDSK” suggestion – that’s something you tell a dim-witted customer to do if you need time to think. Instead,
Go to the Broadcom website and search for the latest Windows 8 drivers available for the Network Card and then install it by following the instructions given in the website. You may download the drivers for the Broadcom NetLinkTM Gigabit Ethernet Card from this link: http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/netlink_k57.php
The existing driver was Microsoft – version 15.6.1.2 – 29/Jan/2013 so newer than Windows 8 RTM. Now I’m running Broadcom – version 15.6.0.2 – 15/Oct/2012 and Steam is happily downloading GBs from the Internet without a hiccup.
Just have to hope Windows doesn’t auto update to the newer Microsoft driver.
John Breakwell's blog 
Cheers John.
Your little guide saved me from pulling my hair out.
Thanks again.
Nathan
Thanks- nice to know I’m not alone. Even nicer to find a ready-made solution.
I’ll pile on as well. Was looking for a solution, yours came with a download link built in – thanks!
Many thanks from France. French and non-french forums are overinforming for nothing. After days and days of searches, here is the holy grail. I will finally enjoy my internet connection…
Thanks again !
Thanks for the post but not working for me at all! Still getting error code 10 even with 15.6.0.2. I have uninstalled the driver and re-installed several times but still having no luck whatsoever. Thinking that I may need a new card.
Error code 10?
Yes. The Driver card in System Devices tells me “This device cannot start. (Code 10)”
That will be a different issue. My problem was a blue screen after the device had successfully started and been used for a short while.
My problem now solved. A little more searching and picked up a set of drivers from Lenovo website. http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS010551 Drivers meant for Windows 7 but tried several different drivers until one worked for me. (not in the normal operating system folders) I am all up on the internet now and happy.
Thanks a lot, had the same problem too.
Thanks, I already thought my network device was broken. Installing the Broadcom driver worked like a charm although I did not have a bluescreen but a breaking network connection when doing heavy downloads on Steam et al.
hi can you please direct me on how you solved the internet problem i have the same over here thanks
Which Internet problem is that?
please Guide me on how to install the driver bcoz all i see are certificates after extracting the zip file
am running windows 8.1 which i have installed a couple of days ago.i cant access the internet continuously for more than 20-25 minutes it keeps disconnecting then i troubleshoot the problem it gets is “default gateway is not found” i get to be connected for a while and the get disconnected the same way again and again. so i found this forum helped people solve this problem please guide me on the process thanks.
This blog post is for problems seen with the Broadcom NetLink Gigabit Ethernet network card that were resolved by choosing the best drivers for the system from various vendor websites. I don’t have any advice beyond that.