IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD crash

Mattathione

Reputable
Mar 16, 2015
1
0
4,510
I bought a new laptop a week ago for some minor gaming such as DotA 2 and online teaching using Skype. Recently, I have been experiencing blue screens of death and it says "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" when I'm having a video call on Skype. It doesn't happen all the time but it's starting to become more often. I was just wondering what the solution for this is.

System specs:
CPU - Intel i5 4510u
RAM - 8gb
Graphics card - Nvidia Geforce 820M 2gb and Intel HD graphics
Storage - 500 gb HDD

Update: I tried downloading WhoCrashed and this is what it says:

"On Sat 4/11/2015 1:13:22 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\041115-23984-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: hal.dll (0xFFFFF8038B028D38)
Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x8, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFF8038B028D38)
Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\hal.dll
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Bug check description: This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

On Sat 4/11/2015 1:13:22 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: athwbx.sys (athwbx+0x2703AE)
Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x8, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFF8038B028D38)
Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\athwbx.sys
product: Driver for Qualcomm Atheros CB42/CB43/MB42/MB43 Network Adapter
company: Qualcomm Atheros Communications, Inc.
description: Qualcomm Atheros Extensible Wireless LAN device driver
Bug check description: This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: athwbx.sys (Qualcomm Atheros Extensible Wireless LAN device driver, Qualcomm Atheros Communications, Inc.).
Google query: Qualcomm Atheros Communications, Inc. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"


 
Solution
Create a system restore point...

Open elevated command prompt

Open Start and type "cmd" and right click and run as administrator.

In the CMD prompt type "sfc /scannow"

After that you can run driver verifier.

1) Open an elevated command prompt and run as administrator.
2) Type "verifier /standard /all"
3) Reboot your machine
4) Run machine again until it crashes which shouldn't take long.
5) Verifier should list the faulty driver, once known uninstall the bad driver and re-install a good one.

After the crash & reboot, go into safe mode (during post press and hold F8).

Once into safe mode disable driver verifier
1) Open an elevated command prompt as an administrator.
2) Type "verifier /reset"
3) Reboot your machine

If that does...

gregbattis

Honorable
Aug 9, 2012
666
0
11,360
Create a system restore point...

Open elevated command prompt

Open Start and type "cmd" and right click and run as administrator.

In the CMD prompt type "sfc /scannow"

After that you can run driver verifier.

1) Open an elevated command prompt and run as administrator.
2) Type "verifier /standard /all"
3) Reboot your machine
4) Run machine again until it crashes which shouldn't take long.
5) Verifier should list the faulty driver, once known uninstall the bad driver and re-install a good one.

After the crash & reboot, go into safe mode (during post press and hold F8).

Once into safe mode disable driver verifier
1) Open an elevated command prompt as an administrator.
2) Type "verifier /reset"
3) Reboot your machine

If that does not work you can almsot rule out a driver issue. It could also be bad ram.
 
Solution

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
I've most often seen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with bad system memory, or the occasional bad GPU memory.

It should also be telling you the faulting module. Usually a DLL or SYS file the might lead you to believe it is a driver error. But that stuff gets loaded into memory...

You may also want to monitor your system's temperatures when you are gaming. It could be a simple matter of overheating that is causing your components to misbehave.

Windows logs are a good place to look to get a general picture of what happened right before the crash.
 

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