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I'm getting a happy blue screen of the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL variety, and have no idea how to fix it. I have updated every driver, swapped out every piece of hardware, tried every BIOS setting and uninstalled every program (including Windows) and still no luck. I freeze about once every 15 minutes, only when using the computer (stays on overnight just fine), but in games, IE, Excel, everything.
Also, about 1 out of every 3 times I start up, I have no internet and have to restart.
I'm running an Athlon on an ECS K7S5A board, currently running 128MB of old SDRAM but have also tried Crucial and Kingston DDRAM, IBM 40GB drive. Have tried both onboard LAN and pci card. Video card is Hercules Prophet 4500 (Kyro series). 300W PS.
Any thoughts would save what little hair I have left.
Thx,
Doug
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prmd_stp_hwpg.asp
Laters,
KTTD
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Thanks, but I read through that, and basically what I take away from it is "there's something wrong with a piece of your hardware or a software program", which doesn't rule much out.
I've swapped out every piece of hardware except processor, motherboard, and video card. I suspect one of the following 5 options:
1. video card don't go on XP, even though company says it does
2. bad motherboard
3. bad processor
4. bad XP install CD
5. foolish BIOS setting resulting from my lack of BIOS knowledge
Any and all suggestions welcome, as I'm a desperate man.Doug
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There are so many things that can cause this error message it is not funny. That is why I posted the link. If you follow the link and what is within it you might be able to fix your problem. You might also take a trip down to your local book store and flip threw the MS Resource Kit for Xp. It is a huge book. It has some 1800 plus pages. In there you might find the answer.
Laters,
KTTD
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Doug, have you run memtest86 to check your RAM ? I was having problems that was driving me nuts, but i discounted the ram because the startup memory checker said it was ok. Memtest86 exposed several bad addresses and after i replaced the stick, all the crashes stopped.
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PS: I also have a Hercules Prophet 4500 (Kyro series), and it works just fine with xp (I did have to download a patch from Hercules).
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ive had the exact same problem man i have a ecs k7s5a athlon xp, it turns out that the bios version thought i had an onbaord lan, so when it thought that it conflicted with my add in acer network pci card, even though nothing was to conflict but it thought it had an onbaord, so i went to ecs's website and downloaded the latest bios WITHOUT LAN file coz theres 2, one with and one without i got one without and then no more onbaord was detected even though there wasnt and its working fine now for bout 2 months.
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sorry to be the bearer of bad news but i have a first hand experience in this board
with exactly the same problems you have and sometimes more besides.i ran the memtest 86 test as advised above and tests 3 and 5 were throwing 200,000 errors on my first board, after pursuading the seller that the board was faulty he exchanged it and did the memtest ptior to leaving the shop all was ok....
intill about 4/5 days later when problems started to show up once again so i went back again armed with much detail about this problem.sometimes when using winrar it would give me crc errors often in fact come to think of it it wasn`t just winrar, but anyhow the board was corrupting data somewhere along the line and this was causing it to crash / BSOD
i tried the same things with a different system without problems so i knew it was specific to that board / cpu /memory or a combination of.well to cut a long story short i swapped the board for a gigabyte mobo with EXACTLY the same hardware, software cpu etc etc.
I am yet to have a crash that wasn`t my fault (tryin` to overclock the new board)
the seller telephoned ecs and explained my problem while i was in the shop and their reply was that there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this board .....the seller even went so far as to say that it was a virus but it was definately NOT the mobo.here is a link to more end user comments about this board.
i sincerely hope for your sake this is not the problem you are going through, however it strikes an all too familiar sound with me
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2001nov/bch2001
1129009082.htmi also got the invalid page fault in a non paged area quite alot in xp and a fatal exception in ......vxd vcache (01)..... in win98
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Had the same problem and if you have ezcdcreator installed when you upgrade you will need to uninstall it and install xp clean.
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Update:
Sounds like it's the board, which is what I hoped was not the case. I just yesterday had to return the bad crucial memory I bought at the same time.
I also have started getting the Invalid page fault in a nonpaged area. Not a good sign, I'm thinkin'.
Anyhow, it's not the memory (I've tried 2 others I know to be good). Good to hear Prophet works in XP; I'll drop that from the possible problem list. I have an onboard LAN, grabbed the right update from ECS, flashed BIOS, etc.
In one last effort to stick the blame on Microsoft (or a bad CD), I'm wiping the drive today and putting 2000 on. I liked XP, but not enough to deal with this. Will let you know how it goes.
Anybody else had the no-internet-on-1/3-of-startups prob?
Doug
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One final update, in case anyone is listening:
Tried to format HDD and install Win2k. Got IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL *while installing* the damn OS. I feel pretty safe blaming my motherboard at this point. She'll be going back.
Thanks for all the help. If I'm crazy, let me know.
Doug
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Your not crazy I have read every mesage from this posting and I have the exact same problem....BUT I run a dual boot WIN98se in C and WIN XP in D from all I can tell we have none of the same hard ware and My computer runs PERFECT in 98 but blue screan and reboot auto in XP So my conclusion is XP has big problems.
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sorry Debbie i can`t agree with you on that.
i too was quick to blame XP, but since i have had my new mobo it is running better than i ever thought an OS could run.
and all i have done to change from unstable to rock solid is a new mobo.how can it possibly be the OS ?
it can only be the mobo, nothing else has changed.later
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i have the ECS board and allways had that problem, allthough it seems to have died off somehow and i dont know why, i dont think it was your board, it just needed a good wipe. BTW, going off the subject a bit, I CANT flash my bios, i go to pure dos and type the flash util and it loads up and b4 i can do anything it says "file not found" i dont get it
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