Mostly a 'how to' incase I ever run across this exact problem again, but there may be others that also have this issue and don't have a reasonable answer for it.
I installed Win 8.1 onto my Toshiba, and ran the updates. Any time it tried to update the Atheros AR9285 wireless driver, it crashed the computer.
Checking the Microsoft site indicated that the driver was not compatible with Windows 8.1, and several other sites I tried didn't have an actual download link.
I ended up finding it here: https://www.atheros.cz/atheros-wireless-download.php?chipset=37&system=7
Under the first box, click the Click for Download box, and unzip the file. From there, go to device manager, and tell it to update the wireless network driver in whatever folder those files ended up, and it solves the problem.
I installed Win 8.1 onto my Toshiba, and ran the updates. Any time it tried to update the Atheros AR9285 wireless driver, it crashed the computer.
Checking the Microsoft site indicated that the driver was not compatible with Windows 8.1, and several other sites I tried didn't have an actual download link.
I ended up finding it here: https://www.atheros.cz/atheros-wireless-download.php?chipset=37&system=7
Under the first box, click the Click for Download box, and unzip the file. From there, go to device manager, and tell it to update the wireless network driver in whatever folder those files ended up, and it solves the problem.