IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Error

[JonUK]

I seem to be getting this error quite randomly, the computer works fine at all other times then the BSOD will occur and I will then have to hard-reset the computer. IRQs seem to be shared when I look in the Device manager.

The machine spec/setup is as follows:

AMD Athlon XP 2400+
nVidia nForce 2 Motherboard (on-board sound/network card DISABLED in bios)
nVidia Geforce FX 5200 128mb (AGP)
Diamond SupraExpress 56i PRO modem (PCI)
Soundblaster Live! 5.1 soundcard (PCI)
Windows 2000 sp4

The BSOD only occurs when I am connected to the internet as far as I can tell. The machine will suddenly display this error when I am browsing or gaming online. Obviously this points to the modem. The modem itself is quite old and has the latest drivers that Diamond produced for Win2k. Other drivers have been updated to. The modem operates fine at all other times and also worked flawlessly in two other computers. Once the error has occured and the machine is re-set it is fine until the error occurs again, this can vary from a day all the way up to 4 days.

Below is a sample of "Save Dump" messages from Event Viewer:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000000a (0xe13c83c8, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x80532c33).

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000000a (0xe13c83c8, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x80532c33).

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000000a (0xe13c9d08, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x80532c33).

Anyone have any ideas as to what may be causing this problem and how to stop the errors?

 

[johnnnny5]

this is usually either caused by poorly seated memory... bad memory... or a faulty driver.

 

[JonUK]

Memory has been changed around in the slots and tested in MemTest-86 (seemed to pass OK).

 

[JonUK]

The Interrupt request (IRQ) view in Device Manager also shows that the following hardware is all sharing (PCI) 11:

>Creative SB Live! series
>NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
>Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
>Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
>SupraExpress 56i PRO

Could this cause the error as they appear to be conflicting but Windows doesn't see it as a problem?

 

[Bucksnort]

You have to get the audio and video off the same irq. You probably have the sound card in the first pci slot directly under the agp slot. Move it to a slot further down. The first pci slot under agp should be left vacant because it will use same irq as the agp slot.

 

[JonUK]

The PCI/AGP slot setup is this:

AGP: Geforce fx
PCI 1: empty
PCI 2: system fan (screws into slot, no pci connection)
PCI 3: empty
PCI 4: soundcard
PCI 5: modem

It may be a possibility that the last PCI slot shares the same IRQ as the AGP as I get this error when connected with the modem. I shall move it to slot 3 tommorow.

 

[johnnnny5]

Originally posted by: Bucksnort
You have to get the audio and video off the same irq. You probably have the sound card in the first pci slot directly under the agp slot. Move it to a slot further down. The first pci slot under agp should be left vacant because it will use same irq as the agp slot.

typically this only applies to pro-level audio. Consumer audio (at least on most modern machines) doesn't have issues with irq sharing. Even if it did, it would cause a static/crackling/popping type noise during playback (bogus and missing samples). Typically this BSOD message (with an understandably misleading message) would not be caused by irq sharing (under normal circumstances).

The modern pci standard doesn't really have irq sharing issues (at least at a consumer level).