IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL/Kernel Power

[Marquis12333]

I recently built myself a new PC, and since I've been trying to get everything up to date, such as drivers hoping it would prevent this issue I am running into. I've updated the BIOs, updated all the drivers, and I've googled/watched videos to try and figure this all out. But I've had no luck the last two days, and I'm getting stressed out over here. So I need you guys help to help me figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. I'm ready to run whatever tests I need to run given by you guys. I will post my specs belows. Thanks in advance!

Case: Corsair Graphite Series 760T CC-9011074-WW White Full Tower Windowed Case

Motherboard:GIGABYTE GA-Z270X-Ultra Gaming (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z270 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Motherboards - Intel

PSU:
EVGA - 850W Modular BQ Power Supply - Black

GPU:
PNY - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card - Black

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake Quad-Core 4.2 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80677I77700K Desktop Processor

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Memory Kit Model ...

Water cooling:
Corsair Hydro Series Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler H100i

SSD:
PNY - CS1311 240GB Internal SATA III Solid State Drive

HDD: WD Black 1TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD1003FZEX

 

[whm1974]

Which version of Windows are you using? Might be your PSU?:
https://www.eightforums.com/bsod-crashes-debugging/14020-windows-8-irql_not_less-_or_equal.html
Hope this helps. Based on the link above, I would double check your power connections, make sure everything is plug in correctly.

 

[whm1974]

OK just rule out any hardware issues, download a Linux distro that has a LiveMedia option, burn it to a USB stick, and boot off it. Run the Memtest86 program first and then boot into the Linux Live environment. This is not installing Linux to your computer but providing a "test drive" instead.

If you can boot into that without any problem then it is a Windows issue and not something wrong with your hardware.

 

[Marquis12333]

I'm running Windows 10 Home. Also I just bought a new PSU on the 27th (the one I thinked above) so I'd be shocked if it was that. After I run This Linux program, and if that works no problem, what will I do next? Also (sorry to be a noob) but Im kinda new to what you're talking about, could anyone possibly give me some links to all of this? Even maybe a video I could watch.

 

[whm1974]

I'm running Windows 10 Home. Also I just bought a new PSU on the 27th (the one I thinked above) so I'd be shocked if it was that. After I run This Linux program, and if that works no problem, what will I do next? Also (sorry to be a noob) but Im kinda new to what you're talking about, could anyone possibly give me some links to all of this? Even maybe a video I could watch.

I'm no Windows expert, and in fact I haven't even use it in three years. I just did a brief internet search on this error code and as far as I can tell, this sounds like a driver issue. So you may have a driver conflict, try uninstalling any drivers you may have recently installed.

The Linux live media and memtest86 testing is just to rule out any hardware issues.

Here is the Wikipedia page for Live USB:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_USB

Linux Mint link, but any modern distro will do:
https://linuxmint.com/

 

[Marquis12333]

Okay, thank you for the links. One other thing, I've been researching this for the last few days, and post always say that to get rid of drivers I just installed. But computers can have many drivers and I'm not sure which drivers could be causing this issue.

 

[whm1974]

Just uninstall any drivers you have manually installed yourself.

 

[Marquis12333]

Okay I will try that and let you know how it goes. Plus one other question. Do you think just a new other motherboard would fix this instead of all of this?

 

[whm1974]

Okay I will try that and let you know how it goes. Plus one other question. Do you think just a new other motherboard would fix this instead of all of this?

I'm not sure if this is even a hardware issue at all but it never hurts to rule things out anyway. I would uninstall any driver you have installed yourself one by one until you no longer have the problem.

Or you could just reinstall Windows and use it as it is and see if you still get this issue.

OK where are the Windows experts forum members at? The version of Windows I used was 8.0 and I was using ClassicShell with that. I'm over my head here since I'm just Linux guy. I'm just giving basic troubleshooting advice.

 

[Marquis12333]

I have reinstalled windows twice in the last couple of days, and this would happen before I downloaded any drivers.

 

[whm1974]

Sorry to hear that. Maybe run Windows update and see if that fixes the problem? I would run those tests I told you about just to rule out any hardware issues.

 

[Ketchup]

Need more info. Get a program called WhoCrashed (its free) and see if a storage dump recorded the error. It will give you some suggestions.