Can someone please help me.. ASUS A7N8X w/ AMD 1800+ (SP1 installed)(latest bios Drv) ASUS Gforce 3 T2 Ti 200 Video card. 512 DDR Pc2700 RAM. Here's my prob, Everytime I try to play Return to Castle Wolfenstein or any other intense High Graphic game.. My computer goes to BSOF..(Blue Screen of Death) I get the error message "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" Now here's what I have done so far.. When I use the default drivers for my video card (Digitaly Signed) that where downloaded when I installed Windows XP everything is fine however I can not play any intense games. I get the message when I'm loading that "Open GL subsystem could not be opened, game will now close" SO I went to Both the ASUS & NVIDIA websites looking for upgrades to my Video Card. Now I went to ASUS because my card manufacture is ASUS, but I also went to NVIDIA because that is the chip set that the card uses. Both sites have different driver updates for the card that are supposedly compatible with 2000/XP BUT Neither of them are Digitally Signed by Microsoft so when I'm installing them (Seperately of course, NEVER TOGETHER)I get that caution window that I'm about to install a driver that is not signed off by microsoft and that it might cause my system to become unstable. However all my games NOW WORK but only breifly.. sometimes I can play for about 10mins, and at other times only 2 mins. From this point I get the BSOF with the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Error!!! WHAT'S THE DEAL! Some people have said they have the say problem only when they downloaded the SP1 (service pack 1) when they took it off the game ran fine for a while.. others say i need to isolate the IRQ that my video card is running on and make sure it is not being shared with other hardware. Could it be my RAM chip?? (512 DDR PC2700 generic). I can tell you that it is definitely not my PSU (ANTEC 350W) or an overheating problem (51C when playing a game)! Sorry story is so long but I want to make sure you understand what I have and what i have done..

I was getting the same error several times a day, and after trying everything else, I removed the newly added 256K memory chip from my 512K machine and the problem seems to have disappeared. I have been running for about one week with no blue screens at all. Worth a try.

TwoDogs... Yeah... I am headed in that direction too. I was kind of hoping this problem wouldn't lead me there simply because of the cost. But thanks for your suggestion, and theirs a Computer Fair this weekend that I think I will go pick one up at.

What file errors teh system? I use to get this as well. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL from usbuchi.sys, I was like what the heck. After extensive research I found it to be a problem with the USB ports. IF this is the case then you should try unplugging some USB devices and see if it runs stable with out them. Also their is a severe problem with Soundblaster cards and this problem. I use to have BSOD IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSODS left and right. After I uninstalled my Soundblaster card, no problems what so ever. It happened during games or whenever sound was present, but seemed to be randomly controlled. If you DO have a soundblaster card try uninstalling it and doing stuff, if you have onboard sound, enable that and play music then.

irq_not_less_or_equal is generally caused by unsigned video drivers or any...the possability of faulty ram chip is very low.

Ryan & Chuck Thanks for your input!!! I do have a SoundBlaster Xgamer Live and I was getting faults left and right.. then I disabled it, but didn't uninstall drivers or take the card out. I will do this tonight. And I have narrowed my problem to one of two things.. Video Card Drivers or Ram Chip.. I just hope its the drivers and not the card..

I had the exact same type of crash problem back in May and April, 2002 when I was using my Soyo SY-K7VTA-B motherboard, AMD Athlon T-Bird 900 mhz processor with 256 MB PC133 SDRAM at CAS3. It was because of overclocking my Athlon T-Bird processor. (900 @1.05 ghz (1050 mhz)). I assumed it was stable, because no crashes with Windows 98 SE (once the Vcore was at 1.85V). But if and when using Windows XP Pro and running Need for Speed III, Windows XP was crashing with STOP IRQL_NOT_LESS_QR_EQUAL. Strangly I don't recall Windows XP crashing when using Project64 (Nintendo 64 emulator) or recall Project64 crashing when playing a processor intensive game such as Rare games (Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark). The above crash would always happen if and when running Need for Speed III even at the menu with the music and not racing when my processor was overclocked at 1.05 ghz (1050 mhz). The crash went away after reducing the processor frequency to 1000 mhz. I thought it was stable, because I have not been getting fatal exception errors with Windows 98 SE. But crashes started again after installing Windows XP when running Need for Speed III.