Computer upgrade gives error

[CountZero]

So I upgrade my computer. Went from a 1800+XP to a 2600 Barton, also added another stick of 512 crucial (identical to the original stick I had) and a 120GB WD HDD. With those upgrades I ran prime 95 for 18 hours without a hitch.

Decided to move off of onboard sound and got a cheap Audigy LS. Disabled onborad sound (its a Biostar M7VIZ) and installed card. Had issues with winamp, it would crash and give me a blue screen with something about a memory dump and the error IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and it referred to hal.dll. I steered clear of winamp, gamed for a while and then while just screwing around on the net I get the same error. I later got the same error in reference to DMusic.sys.

Looks like an IRQ problem. I move the soundcard to a different slot. It reinstalls the drivers to coincide with the new IRQ. It went from 18 to 17. Winamp now runs fine but while just networking to another computer I got the same BSOD with the same error in reference to ntoskernel.<something> it went by too fast to see exactly what it said.

So what do you guys think the issue is? It still feels and looks like an IRQ problem related to the new sound card since it was perfectly stable before the new soundcard.

I have the latest drivers for everything installed, full specs below:

AMD 2600 Barton
2x512 MB Crucial 2700
40GB WD SE
120GB WD SE
LiteOn 52x
Biostar M7VIZ (VIA KM400 based)
Audigy LS
Sapphire Radeon 9700pro
Windows 2000

Any help or ideas are appreciated. Like I said the crashes seem to happen at random bizzare times. Got one just opening Netscape to get in to post about it.

 

[daveshel]

That is a driver issue. Are you using the latest, greatest Audigy drivers?

 

[azazal]

i had similar probs to u i guess, i used to frequently (2-3 times daily) get the irql_not_less or equal bsod, this was after upgrading my cpu from celery 2ghz to p4 2.26 ghz,
would also get frequent Internet explorer errors,

i, like you, have a biostar mobo, with radeon 9700 pro ,lol, but i think thats jus a coincidence , what i did to fix it? well, i did a few things, soo i not sure which 1 has fixed it, but in this order:

check your Vcore voltage, my biostar set it to 1.1volts as opposed to 1.525 for the p4 [ i just bought new mobo cus it wouldnt let me change this]

set bios settings to Load Optimised Defaults, changing only options you know for sure

re install chipset drivers [via all in one]
re install graphics drivers

of course, this may not work for you, but i havent crashed in weeks, so am assuming im fixied, apart from the horrid vcore,which gives me slightly unstable in farcry [random reboots] - but all will be well when i recieve my new mobo

EDIT I JUST RE READ YOUR POST, AND ALL OF THE ABOVE IS NOT TOO USEFUL ME THINKS

 

[Ryoga]

To further clarify (because it's a common confusion) this is an IRQL error, not an IRQ error. An IRQ is a hardware level interrupt. An IRQL is a kernel-mode software interrupt.

Understanding IRQL

Back on topic, fixing the IRQL_NOT_LESS... error usually involves updating the driver related to the file shown in the stop error. If no file is listed, then you should update you video, sound, and motherboard chipset drivers (these are the most common culprits of this error). Running the debugger on the minidump will tell you more precisely what driver messed up.

If the error persists, you should run RAM testing software such as MemTest86+, since damaged RAM can also cause this error. It is also a rather general stability error, so if you're OC'ing that Barton, dial it down a notch.

 

[flexy]

i just got a new HP notebook....and this ^%!%@&amp;!&amp;!~~ - DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS... crash bugged me for over two weeks !!!! It seems to appear after i installed a FRESH copy of XP home and downloaded from Windows update....

Research showed it is driver related, either built in wireless lan driver or (even more likely) (wired) LAN driver.

HP suport was worthless...so..what you can do is try different drivers (older ones)...use system restore to an extent...and play around with options like disabling unneeded devices...also the order what Network card (wireless or wired) connects triggers this d*rn crash. Eg if i set to wireless and then wireless is unavailable it could crash...etc..... most BIZARRE and annoying error i had in a long time with a brand new computer.

As is my understanding quite some people have this problem (especially with notebooks)...too bad there seems no easy *solution* but just plain try and error and playing around with drivers 'til the system is halfway stable. Also likely new Windows updates/patches from windows update have smething to do with it...