DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

[kemster]

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I seem to get the BSOD and this error message about every other day
since upgrading to SP2. It will read something like 0x000000D1,
0x00000004, x000000002, 0x857C73DC, but make no mention of any specific
driver which caused the problem (no filename or anything).

I have tried all of the following:
- Verified that my video, network, sound card, mouse, ide controller
have the latest drivers
- Verified that my RAM is not faulty
- Upgraded to the latest BIOS version
- disabled all shadow/caching in the BIOS
- updated my Windows with Windows Update to all the latest on
everything
- re-installed SP2
- disabled virtual memory, rebooted, re-enabled it, rebooted (following
instructions found on a web site)


This is my system:
P4 2.6GHz, 800MHz FSB
1GB (2x512mb Dual DDR) RAM
MSI 865PE Neo2 Motherboard
Running Windows XP Pro, SP2
Maxtor 160GB 7200RPM IDE drive
ATI AIW 9000 64MB Video card
Creative SB Live MP3+ sound card
Benq 4x DVD+R/W burner
Logitech MX700 RF/optical mouse
Dell 1901FP 19" LCD
Realtek RTL8139 10/100Mbps Ethernet


Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem is? Thanks.

 

[daniel49]

seems to be a common one these days with no pat answer. I did some cleaning in my registry, very carefully ,and seemed to get rid of 97% of them....every great once in a while but not often.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: kemster
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

I seem to get the BSOD and this error message about every other day
since upgrading to SP2. It will read something like 0x000000D1,
0x00000004, x000000002, 0x857C73DC, but make no mention of any specific
driver which caused the problem (no filename or anything).

I have tried all of the following:
- Verified that my video, network, sound card, mouse, ide controller
have the latest drivers
- Verified that my RAM is not faulty
- Upgraded to the latest BIOS version
- disabled all shadow/caching in the BIOS
- updated my Windows with Windows Update to all the latest on
everything
- re-installed SP2
- disabled virtual memory, rebooted, re-enabled it, rebooted (following
instructions found on a web site)


This is my system:
P4 2.6GHz, 800MHz FSB
1GB (2x512mb Dual DDR) RAM
MSI 865PE Neo2 Motherboard
Running Windows XP Pro, SP2
Maxtor 160GB 7200RPM IDE drive
ATI AIW 9000 64MB Video card
Creative SB Live MP3+ sound card
Benq 4x DVD+R/W burner
Logitech MX700 RF/optical mouse
Dell 1901FP 19" LCD
Realtek RTL8139 10/100Mbps Ethernet


Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem is? Thanks.

Pop out the SBLive sound card and your BSOD's will stop.

Module[ 62] [C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\EMU10K1M.SYS]
Company Name: Creative Technology Ltd.
File Description: Creative SB Live! Adapter Driver
Product Version: (5.12:1.3300)
File Version: (5.12:1.3300)
File Size (bytes): 283904
File Date: Fri Aug 17 13:19:26 2001

...is the bad driver. I notice it's from 2001, so if there's a newer one, update to it. If there's no newer driver, yank the card out, use onboard sound for a little while to confirm that really is the problem, and then get another sound card (or stick with onboard sound).

Let us know.

 

[Capitalizt]

clean and defrag the registry...Check device manager to see if any installed components share the same IRQ number. If you recently installed a sound/video card, you may need to change the slot it is in and resolve the conflict.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Capitalizt
clean and defrag the registry...Check device manager to see if any installed components share the same IRQ number. If you recently installed a sound/video card, you may need to change the slot it is in and resolve the conflict.

This is bad advice re:registry. There are some very bad programs out there that purport to "clean" your registry. How can a program tell what should or should not be there? Use XPSP1 or later, and RegEdt32 will automatically repair any minor problems in the registry - or there's always MS's REGFIX, but commercially available or shareware "regcleaners" are almost always a bad idea.

IRQ sharing is now the norm in hardware today. Per modern PCI specs and ACPI specs, it's expected and not an issue. On top of all that, IRQL (the error he has) and IRQs are not related.

He sent me the minidumps that are generated when a Windows XP machine crashes. These dumps are found in c:\windows\minidump. They tell why the system crashed - typically it's a driver fault (and IRQL almost always is a driver fault). In this case, it appears to be a problem with the SBLIVE sound card drivers, straight from 2001. So, I saw the driver that was the problem, then went to his MPSReports, and cut and pasted the driver information you see above.

I'd suggest that the OP revert to Microsoft-supplied SBLive! drivers, if possible. If they don't exist, try finding a later version of the Creative Labs drivers.

 

[kemster]

I found a sound blaster driver from 3/18/2002, so I installed that. I'll let you know if I get another BSOD. Thanks for the help!

 

[dclive]

There are no newer drivers on the www site?

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Do youself a BIG favor - if you have onboard audio, lose the SBLive. It's been cursed with bad drivers and serious PCI IRQ Sharing issues that Creative never resolved. Worst card they ever mad.

Any modern mobo will have a decent AC97 or C-Media sound chip onboard that will far outperform the SBLive. Failing that, or if you need an optical connection, you can buy a good 5.1 Aopen C-Media card at NewEgg for $22.

Use the SBLive as a door stop.

 

[kemster]

There are no newer drivers on the www site?

Looks like the creative driver site is down (keep getting an error page). When I use the Auto-Update feature, it tells me that the 2001 driver is the latest. I googled and found a '02 driver which I installed, and so far no crashes (keeping my fingers crossed).

 

[kemster]

Do youself a BIG favor - if you have onboard audio, lose the SBLive. It's been cursed with bad drivers and serious PCI IRQ Sharing issues that Creative never resolved. Worst card they ever mad.

Any modern mobo will have a decent AC97 or C-Media sound chip onboard that will far outperform the SBLive. Failing that, or if you need an optical connection, you can buy a good 5.1 Aopen C-Media card at NewEgg for $22.

Use the SBLive as a door stop.

Prior to installing SP2, this card never gave me a single problem, and I've had it since 2000 or 2001. And I do use the digital-output (although I'm pretty sure it is not optical). I guess if the crashes continue, I'll try using the onboard sound. No clue what kind of soundchip it has.. havent used it at all.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Your mobo has an integrated AC'97 audio chips which is an excellent sound chip and will sound as good - if not better - than the SBLive.

You will also be doing yourself a favor by eliminating an older card that uses a LOT of system resources.

 

[PurdueRy]

didn't read what other people said. But it can be due to ram timings. Back them off just a bit and see if that helps

 

[KavinCross]

I have the same problem. BSOD with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Mine however did list a file.

Ha10Kx2K.sys

I have the latest drivers for everything and took FlyingPenguins advice and got another soundcard. SBLIVE is trashed and i replaced it with a SBAudigy2 ZS sans the stupid live drive thing.

I unistalled all the old drivers before I put the new card in. Could it be some remained?

My old thread...
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=32&threadid=1566126

 

[cjohnson412]

i noticed this probems on a lot of laptops that we had in the desert, Its seem to be that they were getting bad connections to the HD, I would try checking ur HD IDE lines.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: rleemhui
didn't read what other people said. But it can be due to ram timings. Back them off just a bit and see if that helps

rleemhui,

I've actually looked at the memory dumps that were provided - they clearly say the SBLive! driver was at fault. What do you have that tells you it's RAM timings?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: KavinCross
I have the same problem. BSOD with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Mine however did list a file.

Ha10Kx2K.sys

I have the latest drivers for everything and took FlyingPenguins advice and got another soundcard. SBLIVE is trashed and i replaced it with a SBAudigy2 ZS sans the stupid live drive thing.

I unistalled all the old drivers before I put the new card in. Could it be some remained?

My old thread...
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=32&threadid=1566126

I'd be happy to look at the dumps if you'd like. Send me the dumps and the MPS Reports for the computer (as computername.cab) via e-mail and I'll tell you what I see. Please do ALL Windows updates and driver updates prior to collecting any other data!!

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: cjohnson412
i noticed this probems on a lot of laptops that we had in the desert, Its seem to be that they were getting bad connections to the HD, I would try checking ur HD IDE lines.

IRQL errors typically point to driver issues. If you had a HD problem, typically you'll see swap file errors (can't reach pagefile and the like).

 

[PurdueRy]

oh all I was saying is that it can be because of ram timings. In your case it may not be. That bluescreen can occur because of too aggressive settings

 

[KavinCross]

Cant find the files you need. I did a search and couldnt pull up anything that looked like what you requested.

Are these all included in a single file or did you want them combined in winrar or something else?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: KavinCross
Cant find the files you need. I did a search and couldnt pull up anything that looked like what you requested.

Are these all included in a single file or did you want them combined in winrar or something else?

Should be in c:\windows\minidump - what do you see in there?

Run MPSReports (see my .sig) and send me the resulting yourcomputername.cab file, too.

Do all this AFTER you do all Windows updates, and ALL driver updates for ALL stuff you have in the machine.

 

[dclive]

Most point to an issue with your nv4 driver - your nVidia driver. I
saw one memory corruption, the rest point to the nVidia driver.

Are your motherboard's drivers up to date?

Is everything normally clocked? You're not using RivaTune, are you?

Uninstall Memturbo and any memory 'enhancing' software.

If you pull the nVidia card out and replace it with another (an ATI or
other vendor's chipset) do the problems go away?

 

[KavinCross]

Thanks for checking them out.

Ok lets see...
On the drivers side I got the latest drivers for it. I did uninstall the Nforce hard disk drivers and eliminated some crashes a while back. Its been along road with this and its been hard to find what causes a crash when other crashes seem to be covering for each other.

Everything is normally clocked, I dont believe in the need for overclocking. Its running at 166 mainboard speed in the bios but thats not overclocking it. I did try turning it back to 133 which drops the processor from 2600 to 2100 but the problem didnt seem to be efected. So I put it back after a few days.

Whats RivaTune? Is that like Ntune? I do have that but im not sure if its running.

I just took out memturbo, I never ran this usually when running games, I usually ran it after playing a game (when succesful without a crash) before doing any rendering.

I dont have another vid card to try unfortunatly. My system doesnt come with one built in either.

 

[montag451]

One thing that [out of '1 or 2 other things'] that can make sp2 kooky is if you had any spyware/malware on the system before you installed it.
Another is certain Antivirus software and firewalls.

Uninstall SP2,
Do loads of antispyware testing - the usual hitmen - Adaware/spybot/microsoft antispyware/trojanhunter etc etc After updating them - go in to SAFE MODE to do the scans
Uninstall all non=essential progs,

Reboot,
Check there are no non essential startup progs
Reinstall SP2
Reinstall chipset drivers
Reinstall rest of software

 

[dclive]

The dumps point to the nv4 device; that suggests there is a problem with the video card/drivers used along the path to the video card. A good test is going to be to put an ATI video card in there (or any brand but nVidia) to see what happens. Can you borrow one from someone?

This isn't a guess - your dumps literally say the nVidia drivers have a problem. There could be something else contributing to that, though, so I suggest simply replacing the card with another as a quick, simple test.

 

[KavinCross]

Since I wont be able to get another card anytime reliably soon there may be some other ideas.

One thing I noticed before, when this post started. The origonal file was related to the sound card. I tried moving it to another slot and uninstaled and reinstaled new drivers and updated said drivers. Now the only thing its telling me is the display drivers in the BSOD. However it should be pointed out that the IRQL_less_than message isnt there. Does that info change anything? Could this be resolved in bios somehow?

Another question about the vid card. Its made by gainward using a nvidia gforce4 ti4600. The drivers on their site look old and when i reinstalled this current system i used Nvidia drivers from their site. Should I have installed the ones from the Manufacturer then upgraded with the ones on the nvidia site?

PS Im sensing a little prejudice against Nvidia here. =D Im not so sure I want to have an ATI card back in my machine. One of their older cars jacked up a system bad. Also this isnt the best economy right now for me to get a new 400+ dollar video card.