BSOD - IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL

[Rhonda the Sly]

Hello, :3

Well, I'm not one for small talk, so I'll just out and say it: My motherboard is a dead. It posts and I can get into BIOs... but that's all I can do these days. Around when XP (MCE 2005) loads, my drops to a BSOD error. Most times I see a black screen after the windows loading screen but sometimses I'm treated to the blue welcome screen - then a BSOD, which I find refreshing. Anyway, I kinda need to know what's wrong with my computer. I'm going to build a new computer in a few months, but I would fancy having a working computer from now to then, and don't want to waste money/time buying parts that won't fix my problem.

The Error
The BSOD, as mentioned in the title is "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL," as far as I can remember from my research a while back, it comes around mainly thanks to memory, wireless mice, and cd drive emulators. I plugged in the ugly stock wired mouse that came with my computer and reformatted drive to remove Daemon Tools... what? A tad unecessary? Yeah, I suppose, Daemon couldn't be found in program files, add/remove hardware tool, or the registry. I'd delete the two drives from device manager and upon restart... they'd be there to greet me, the bastards. Then theres a problem with my Soundblaster I've been wanting to experiment with more, but that's another story for another post. The point is this: I shouldn't be getting this error!

Parts List:
MB - MSI RS480M
HD - Seagate Barracuda 7200.07, 200GB
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3400+ Socket 754
Heatsink - CoolerMaster XDream K641 (that's what it looks to be, at least)
RAM - 2x 512MB Samsung DDR1 PC3200u
GPU1 - OCZ 6600GT*
GPU2 - PNY 7900GS*
PSU - Antec Truepower 430

*The 6600GT isn't in proper condition (artifacting in 3D), so I don't use it for everyday use, but during testing I found it conventient to use because of it's length. The 7900GS is long enough to bar access to memory, which meant I had to uninstall it to mess around with memory. Needless to say, that got old fast and I'm leaving it uninstalled until I've cleared this whole mess up, unless I find reason to do otherwise.

Okay, here's how I've narrowed the problem down to the motherboard:
Thinking that I just witnessed a stick of memory pass on, I tried using a one at a time. During testing, I proved, at least to myself, the memory is just fine and made an unexpected discovery. I found that anytime I used a single stick of memory in my DIMM1 socket, the computer would not do so much as post! Of course, if the problems ended there, I'd be using a just one 512MB memory stick right now... on my own computer. Rather unfortunately, using the DIMM2 socket alone doesn't seem to get me anywhere farther than attempting to run in dual channel. All I got from the testing was that my RS480M doesn't run any single stick of RAM from DIMM1. Luckily, with my brother having the same mobo, I could test his to see if all RS480M were incapable of this... and they're not.

So, now it's a fact that my DIMM1 socket does not function correctly. I'm left wondering if my DIMM2 is working as it should, but don't have a floppy driver to run MemTest. I'm also left to wonder if my processor is at fault here. The heatsink fan is apparently running at 2200RPM and on startup pushes over 3900, but just barely. High speeds from my heatsink would explain the 33°C temp. (goes stable at 40, I just noticed) I'm seeing right now, but my brother's computer starts up at a mere 1400RPM, if I remember correctly. There are some differences in out setups I should note: our memory and heatsinks are different brands.

Okay, so it's time for a nap, I'll drop a few more details tomorrow morning when I'm nice and lucid. Any and all responses are appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[dclive]

OK, so you reformatted and have no software on there (nor drivers) that you didn't get from your XP / 2005 CD, correct?

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

Okay, first, yes... I told a fib... I didn't go to sleep, I've been spamming F5.

Second, no. I should have specified. :x I got a lil' gung-ho while I was in my brothers PC and forgot it wasn't mine... XD Another thing is that I reformatted windows from a partition on the HD and not the disk.

I've installed:
TCMP
VLC Player
WMP11
Acrobat 8.
Firefox 2.0
Opera 9
IE7
OpenOffice.org 2.3
7zip
Quicktime

The 163.71 Forceware drivers are hanging out in the "Programs and Drivers" folder I sent over to my HD, but I don't recall installing any drivers. If anything I can uninstall them, but I don't think they are installed.

Just for the record, safe mode, using my parts, is just as much of a bust as starting normally, if not worse. ; ; The computer loads a laundry list worth of .SYS files then just hangs. A few lines I see are:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\ql1280.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\PxHelp20.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\agpCPQ.sys

agpCPQ.sys is the last to show up always and then the computer just freezes over.

Edit: Anytime I say I'm doing anything on my computer past the login screen, I'm using my hard drive on my brother's computer... not sure if I specified that. Nothing more than that usually, though my memory has been tested to work on his computer.

 

[dclive]

Well, if you've installed a few things (pxhelp20.sys from anydvd, likely) so that could be the cause. I'd remove anything you've installed from Windows. You can boot into BartPE to accomplish this, and flip the registry around (see my website for a tutorial on how to flip the registry).

 

[robisbell]

i'd suggest you go to http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ burn the iso to a cd and boot it and run memtest86+ for 6 hours, and then run the appropriate HDD diagnostics.

as a side note, I believe it could be related to the system being underpowered, but will wait and see.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: robisbell
as a side note, I believe it could be related to the system being underpowered, but will wait and see.

Given that significantly higher-power systems use 250W or less (see the Anandtech articles showing actual power usage, some with 8800GTX hardware) how could he be underpowered with just a 6600GT (mostly) in use? A 430W PSU is *huge*.

 

[robisbell]

dc, you're in a land where quad cores need no more power than a old 33mhz P2. I'll await the OP's results, thanks.

 

[dclive]

That comment is silly. There's no way he's hitting near 430W of power. It just isn't there. Even a cursory look at Anandtech's power reviews will prove that. Again, why are you suggesting it's underpowered?

Here's why I say it's massively overpowered: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...ts/showdoc.aspx?i=2668 <<-- AMD FX60 S939 225W used (worst case, under load)

Please detail why you believe his system, far less power-hungry than an AMD FX60, his system with a far less power-hungry graphics card, would require almost 100% more power.

 

[robisbell]

from 25 years of fixing, building, and repairing computers. that's why I have a strong inclination.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: robisbell
from 25 years of fixing, building, and repairing computers. that's why I have a strong inclination.

That's a long time.

I'm suggesting the PSU is more than enough based on actual measurements and facts, particularly Anandtech's own articles, which clearly state that the PSU is much more than enough, and a garden variety 300W PSU should be plenty.

Did you read the article? It's clear that the PSU at 430W is plenty.

 

[robisbell]

and from real world experience a test in a controlled environment is never a good example of how things operate in real life, and since you want to use it 300 watts for a barebones machine, last time I did a power test you did not load up you had just the board, ram and processor. I say with all that the OP has on the machine 430 is not enough,500-550 maybe, but with prices as they are. I'd go 650 to handle future upgrades.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: robisbell
and from real world experience a test in a controlled environment is never a good example of how things operate in real life, and since you want to use it 300 watts for a barebones machine, last time I did a power test you did not load up you had just the board, ram and processor. I say with all that the OP has on the machine 430 is not enough,500-550 maybe, but with prices as they are. I'd go 650 to handle future upgrades.

Maybe the people at Anandtech don't know what they're doing. Maybe Anand's reviewers are idiots.

On the other hand, it's a lot more likely that they do know how to measure power. Did you look at who's writing these reviews showing wattage used? Anand. He's a pretty smart guy. It's very, very difficult to get over 250W-300W usage until you go to the very top of the ATI-Nvidia food chain and you use the old P4/3.4 architecture, and even then you only barely scrape 325-350W or so. It isn't until SLI *and* power-hungry CPUs (ie not today's Core generation, but the previous Intel P4 generation) *and* massive GPUs that you really hit 400W-ish heights.

Very hard to get beyond 300W: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3137&p=6 --> that's with an 8800GTX. A little 6600GT won't need a fraction of the power.

I've run my own tests and they showed I was doing about 280W at the wall (so, really, around 240-250W) with a Intel Quad-Core 2.4, nVidia 8800GTS/320, 4 500GB HDDs, 4 sticks of RAM, and 2 TV Tuners.

Please.... the PSU is fine. You're being absolutely unrealistic.

 

[robisbell]

okay, you go ahead and think what you want. I have experience telling me otherwise.

Rhonda, what's the latest news?

 

[seemingly random]

I've been messing with pc's since apple II's. It has never been my job to do maintenance, but nevertheless have built and worked on many pc's. And I've seen some pretty crappy and underpowered psu's. Unfortunately, this previous experience worked against me since I didn't pay much attention to pc components '99-'04. When I built a pc in '05, I thought I'd just go for it with the psu and got a pcp&c 510w. What a mistake. It was noisy and way overpowered for what I needed - an engineer from pcp&c said he didn't understand the consumer purchases since they were designed for industrial applications. So I started researching psu's and discovered there had been incredible advances (and even a little more in the last year).

I think we are doing a disservice to the uninitiated that come here looking for advice when we recommend 600-800w psu's when most only need a 300-450w quality psu. Notice "quality" psu. I've no doubt that there are still sub-quality psu's available that need to be 600-800w to be acceptable. Maybe this should be pointed out when people get elated about finding a $50 600w psu 'deal'.

---

Rhonda: don't know if it'll help but when I'm having weird problems, I always start with resetting the bios and removing as much h/w as possible. The fact that one stick won't work is troubling. As robisbell suggested, create a bootable cd with memtest and run it. The iso for a cd can also be downloaded from memtest.org. Not much point in going any further until memtest passes after several hours with zero errors. If this fails, the challenge will be to determine which component is failing - mb, ram, etc.

It's convenient when there is another similar pc available which can be used to test suspect components. Then the decision will have to be made as to whether to repair or upgrade the mb/cpu/ram.