How To Fix IRQL Not Less Or Equal

Shadowwrath5 · May 23, 2014

Hi everyone this is everything I have done so far:
Inserted usb to previously windows 7 computer, changed boot order, then ran windows 8.1 installation.
Everything ran fine until it got to the setting things up screen on which I got a blue screen saying something went wrong and must restart.
Read online that changing the setup.exe value from 1 to 3 in HKLOCAL/machine/SYSTEM/SETUP/STATUS/ChildCompletion will fix this and it did.
Install continued along till it got to the downloading apps screen. At this point it took a VERY long time to finish and when it eventually did I got a black screen that I let sit for an hour for good measure but still nothing.
So I eventually reset the machine and it loaded straight into windows 8.1..
I downloaded chrome then afterwards when looking for my evga drivers I got the error: IRQL not less or equal.
My machine rebooted and now will let me login into windows 8.1 but then immediately got this error again.
Now Im just stuck and I dont know how to fix this at all. I just got a bunch of windows 8.1 cds because I was upgrading every computer in the house. All of them worked without a problem except this guy.
I have an asrock extreme3 z77 motherboard, i5gen 3 cpu, evga 660 superclocked gpu, and 8 gb of corsair vengence 1600 ddr3 memory.

Since I posted this Ive followed some instructions on threads. Ive installed the newest drivers for everything including my graphics card but still nothing. Although my graphics card is running now so it leads me to believe its not the problem

junkeymonkey · May 23, 2014

ya I was just with a guy with issues after he installed chrome lots of folks seem to have issues after installing chrome .. don't know if its your case but it seems odd

junkeymonkey · May 23, 2014

take a look

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/unanswered.html?refine=chrome

Shadowwrath5 · May 23, 2014

well I uninstalled everything on every drive hooked to my computer. There is litterally only windows 8.1 and some drivers so it has to be something in the drivers or the mobo but I have no idea how to check this kind of thing.

junkeymonkey · May 23, 2014

so you uninstalled the vid cards driver and put it back to the windows default one [the one that built in to windows and runs the card before you load the main nvidia driver] get it back to that and remove the card and reseat it .

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

My gpu wasn't running until I ran the drivers. I didn't reseat it. But it was never on to begin with.

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

I think its best to install the card running on windows then install the driver then reboot to finish the install

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

Okay..... Ive been working on computers all day trying to get things back to normal and blah blah my head is fried.. I totally misread what you said. Anyway video card is uplugged and installation running good so far. Ill let you know what happens when its done. Sorry

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

So during the installation with the card removed I had to go into regedit to make the installation finish. The same story happened again though Once I boot I go straight to the error page...

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

I don't get it I got 2 asrock boards intel and amd and the driver deal is fairly cut and dry, if its a new build and you finished loading windows and boot to desk top the card is using the built in generic card driver built in to windows to give you a minimum display to get things going then you thake your cards primary driver from the disk or download one you want to use to a file or pendrive and install it follow prompts and re boot and should be good ------ or your changing out the card with a new one you go to add/remove programs -remove the old cards driver and it should go back to the built in windows one then you shut down remove the old card install the new card reboot back to desktop and still be using the windows default driver then you install the primary driver for the new card when it installs follow tprompt and reboot the driver should be installed [I like to download the driver from amd/NVidia to a file on the desktop and install it from there]

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

If I format all of my drives to where there is no data on any of the 3 wouldn't that remove any and all drivers on the machine? I've only been erasing my ssd which has just Windows on it.
Also I've been reading other peoples post on this issue and there is a lot about over clocking. It's not really overclocking but I did change my ram speed from 1333 to 1600 in the bios. Do you think that could be causing all the trouble?
I'm at work right now so I can't test this till later but if not these do you have any other theories? My computer is only a year old I shouldnt have parts degrading that fast...

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

if its 1600 it should not 1600 defaults to 1333 then you go in and set it to its specs in the bios or just set the xmp profile.. I wonder if you can use one of the disks that you know worked and see if it installs right then use the product key from the one that's not and see if Microsoft lets it activate??

also that computer that fails to install may have another hardware issue that's stopping the load??

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

I feel like it's leaning more to a driver isssue because I have to force changes in the registry just to get Windows 8 to install. I was trying to look up more fixes to that bug besides just changing the value from 1to 3 But again I'm at work and can't remember the wording go look it up..
And yeah it is 1600 it defaulted to 1333 then I set it to 1600.

All the other computers I upgraded were factory made. Only this one and my htpc are custom built and the htpc is on an amd chipset so it's hard to compare.

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

if its a new fresh install of windows it should just load right up to desktop.. now wile your loading windows theres a spot that says something about load drivers. don't load drivers there just proceed with the install windows should have all it needs to get to desktop then you can start installing what drivers you need [chipset, lan, vid card, audio, ect...] if the board has like my asrock the asmeida sata controller on it I don't load it drivers , windows will pick it up and ti works fine. but that's up to you

if the harddrive or optical drive is bad or failing in some way it may be corrupting the install..

windows 99% of the time should load to desktop raw on it owen..

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

Well I couldn't ignore it. It would give me the blue screen error irql then reboot. After the reboot I got an error message saying that Windows had an error and the installation cannot continue. Please restard the install. It was the same story every time till I went into the registry and changed the setup .exe value to 3. Then the install worked but I just got the irql error when I signed into Windows or even before that if I let it sit for about a minute. I can't make any changes to Windows except in safe mode

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

what board is this one ?? and what parts are on it so I can look at them ? one outher thing to try is if your using 2 or more sticks of ram look in the manual and see what slot ~~to use when using just one stick and remove all but that one set the bios to opt-default and re try and see where that goes~~

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

I think my specs are in my signature or somewhere by my name. But: evga 660 superclocked, Intel i5 3570, asrock extreme 3 z77, 1600 ddr3 corsair vengeance 8 gb ram, other than that an Asus CD drive, and ASUS PCE-N53 Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Adapter IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n PCI Express.

I'm adding that thing you said with the ram to my things to do. Also I'm going to remover the WiFi card and see if that's messing me up. I have lan now anyway

I have 3 hdd one is a 120 gb Kingston ssd and the other 2 are Seagate barracudas. 320 and 500 gb

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

ok you did say a few computers so I wanted to be suer I was looking at the one you showed ... like I said I just built this z87 extreme6

one thing I can help with is the ssd never had the need to use one
but try the memory thing and disconnect all the hard drives except the one your using as the boot drive and see ...

this one thing here I keep looking at and I guess I'm missing something on it ''Inserted usb to previously windows 7 computer, changed boot order, then ran windows 8.1 installation.''

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

I downloaded the iso from the Microsoft website and they sent me the keys. I didn't have a CD big enough to use so I'm using my usb as my boot device. I was just saying that the computer was Windows 7 . The os I was upgrading from.

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

did not think you can boot windows from a usb or external drives thought that was a no no with bill... you did look at this on how to do it ?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media

and this??

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/clean-install

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

they say boot but I believe it should be install from, like Linux you can boot to the desktop and not install it from a ''bootable'' pendrive or disk that's how I look at the term boot ..

I don't know , I just get a oem or retail disk and go with that it would be hard to trust that this windows download thing due to something gets lost or corrupt in the download [but that's just me] and then this upgrade thing never sounded appealing. just get the disk and do a freash install on a clean drive... now it looks like you had a good running copy of 7 and I guess its gone and replaced by this failing copy of 8[??]

I just don't know where else to go on this

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

I should say install. Sorry but btw you can make a bootable usb now with Windows 8. Guess he changed his mind.

Yeah that's where I am :/ I'm going to try all those suggestions and see if I can get things going. If not guess I need to get another copy of Windows 7 I lost the disc.

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

well try them and see good luck

that windows to go is bootable but is still tied to a business server on a multi key activation so it would be limited to what you or me would want to do with it anyway but if your a traveling sales man for a company it would be easer that lugging around a laptop

Shadowwrath5 · May 24, 2014

So I got home and started going one by one through and seeing what would work. I removed gpu and started install. Got errors. Removed WiFi card. Installed perfectly. No errors so far and I didn't have to force install in the registry. Good news is I don't need the Damn thing because I have lan now it was only temporary. i don't have to go through the trouble of setting it up or getting a new one.. Installing gpu drivers I will post back if any troubles come about. Although troubleshooting will be much easier because I can actually get in Windows. Thanks for your help man!!!!

junkeymonkey · May 24, 2014

I almost brought that up... but I sure hope it all works out for you and good luck

How To Fix IRQL Not Less Or Equal

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