Wireless Driver Damaged?

Hi everybody,

I have problems with my wireless internet connection. The drivers of my Laptop, a Dell Inspiron 6400 seems to be damaged. All was fine until an hibernation return. The wireless led was turned off and any network couldn't be found. In the Device Manager has dissapeared the wireless adapter (Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 ABG) and when I tried to re-install it a code 31 was reported. I have then downloaded a recent Driver from the Dell Homepage and installed it. The error changed from code 31 to code 12. Then I have requested help from the technical support from Dell and they have uninstalled and reinstalled the network adapter again. They installed first the oldest driver that I have. The code 31 appeared again. So they have updated the driver and the wireless adapter has begun to work. I have turned off, hibernated, standed by the computer to see if the problem comes back. Nothing has happened. Two days after this, I was watching some video downloaded from my internet mail and suddenly the screen has turned it black with grey stripes and has restarted by itself. After this, the network driver has disapperead again. I have contacted McAfee and have downloaded a SDAT file from a link they have sended to me. I have runned it twice and no virus was found. I have downloaded a new SDAT file and runned it. Again no virus was found. I have made a scan with Ad-Aware but nothing rare was found. Just a DivX.dll was recognized as suspicious and other 62 cookies as low to medium risk threats. I have made the recommended action from Ad-Aware and the adapter driver still not work.
Now I have deleted and reinstalled the adapter. The code 31 appears with the old and the new driver, so I have download and then reinstall the latest driver from Dell and now the adapter works.
Is there a virus or malware that damages the driver file and makes it unrecognizable for windows? What can I do to eliminate it?

Thank you very much in advance for your help!!!

 

I think I have not good explained the problem. I know from which brand is my adapter. The problem is that suddenly there comes an error in windows and the laptop restart by itself and then the wireless adapater is not longer recognized. When I try to reinstall it, windows shows me a messegas with the code 31. To resolve this I have to download again the driver from dell and unpack and install it again. I think there is some malware that damages the adapter driver, I mean, a malware that changes something in the file that makes it unrecognizable to windows. By the way, my laptop runs vista home premium SP1 installed.

Thanks for the support!