Wmiprov.log - WDM call returned error: 4200

Question

I have swtiched to an ASUS motherboard, but I have a feeling that it may be a problem for other nForce motherboards as well and I know that you guys are always on top of things in here...and I was hoping that you could confirm or deny my theory. There was another person in the ASUS Forum that has this same thing happening, so at least I know that it is nForce + 3.13 driver related somehow.
Windows XP Pro - I've noticed that my A7N8X-E is logging WMI errors in the file c:\windows\system32\wbem\logs\wmiprov.log. The error message is logged every ten seconds and states this exactly:
(Thu Feb 19 22:52:00 2004.105546) : WDM call returned error: 4200
(Thu Feb 19 22:52:00 2004.105546) : WDM specific return code: 4200(Thu Feb 19 22:52:00 2004.105546)
To troubleshoot where it may be coming from, I tried a few things:
1). Started in Safe Mode. It was NOT logging the error.
2). Started in regular mode with all startup applications disable, it WAS logging the error.
3). Disabled all extra devices in Device Manager, still logging the error.
4). Uninstalled the 3.13 drivers, the error logging stopped.
5). Reinstalled the 3.13 drivers, the errors started logging again. In fact, I checked the file right at the point in the driver installation where it pauses to tell you about the dangers of the IDE drivers and it was already logging the errors.
Does anyone else have this occuring on their motherboard? I would really appreciate it if you could check. If not, does anyone know what might be causing this error to logged.

Answer 1

Hi Axel,
In my case I can completely stop the "WDM call returned error: 4200" by disabling my network interface card.  To try this, right-click on Network Neighborhood and choose 'Properties'.  Then right click on your Local Area Network and choose "Disable".   Then check the log file again in a few minutes to see if it quit loggin errors.  In my case it did stop logging errors.  To test further I uninstalled the nForce onboard LAN and installed a 3Com network card instead.  It also creates the WDM call returned errors as soon as you enable the TCP/IP protocol for the device.
Microsoft says that error #4200 means "ERROR_WMI_GUID_NOT_FOUND, "The GUID passed was not recognized as valid by a WMI data provider".  
I don't think this is a serious error and I doubt it causes any problems, but over at nforcershq.com...I have heard from other people that receive the error too.   All of my Intel based machines NEVER receive this error.  There is very little information on the internet regarding WMI errors, but they are designed for driver programmers to debug problems with their drivers...they really aren't meant to be useful for the end user.  I only came across the error because I was running a hard drive activity monitoring program to diagnose a different problem and I kept seeing that I was writing to the log file every ten seconds...so I decided to open the log file to check it out.
In the mean time I have turned off error logging because it will save on hard drive activity.  My system was logging the error every 10 seconds.  You can turn off the logging by running this from the 'Start -> Run' button "wmimgmt.msc"  Once the window opens, right-click on 'WMI-Control Panel' and choose 'Properties'.  Click on the 'Logging' tab and choose disabe.
One easy way to check which version of nVidia drivers you downloaded is to go to C:\nvidia\nForceWin2KXP and look at the next folder name to see if it says 3.13.
Quote
Originally posted by axeluktoo
(Mon Feb 09 23:51:26 2004.293593) : WDM call returned error: 4200
(Mon Feb 09 23:51:26 2004.293593) : ***************
(Mon Feb 09 23:51:26 2004.293593) : BinaryMofsHaveChanged returned FALSE:
I haven't got a clue what they mean though - anyone else know?
This may sound like a stupid question but how do I find out which set of nForce drivers I have installed (I just download them and install them and I can't remember which ones I have on this partition - I rewrite "Drive Image(s)" quiet a lot also so it's not easy to keep track.
In the "nForce Control Panel" I have the Audio Driver version 6.14.0366.0 (3.66)
and Control panel version 1.00.00.036 (3.66). Am I right in assuming the drivers I have are 3.66?
Axel