IRQL_less_than_or_not_equal errors

[techmanc]

Heat issues could be causing the problems. Leaving the case open should help unless your case is designed for better airflow with cover on. As long as you got your case open be a good idea to get a can of compressed air and clean all the heat sinks and fans.

 

[Squidmaster]

So far I'm 2 or 3 days in with no errors with the case open. This doesn't necessarily mean all that much since I went a week and a half with no errors with the case closed before getting 3 in one day, but it is still interesting.

I have one more observation I never mentioned... When I would get one of these errors in the middle of the night with iTunes active, I would get a really grating feedback-type tone out of my speakers until I rebooted or turned my receiver to another mode. Is this significant at all or would that happen no matter what part of the computer/software caused the errors?

 

[techmanc]

could be like a said earlier a hardware conflict prob between your sound card and hard drives/optical drives is what I am guessing if that the case it can happen quit randomly but it maybe triggered by sound events or certain drive sequence being used. If you want to test for this check first to see if master/slave settings for your ide cable if you have one. Some drives work better the normal master slave drive setup while others prefer selecting master or slave. You could remove you sound blaster as well and try your on board audio. I have 2 of these cards outside of box because they causing issues with my system but I have at least 6 hard drive - optical drive and controller cards so the system resources are limited.

 

[Squidmaster]

I'm using onboard sound and 2 SATA hard drives. I'm going to scrap the one that failed the SMART test upon reinstallation of everything though.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

heat check... make sure fan on cpu and other chips if applicable are spinning fully. make sure heatsinks are not clogged with dust. depending on how long the system has been together, might be worth reapplying thermal paste.

i was recently getting the exact same errors. i fixed it by building a new comp, but i am fairly sure they were due to the northbridge fan dying. i am going to pop on a big heatsink and try to get it running again...