IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL???

Sithlord

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I bought a new board (ASUS A8N-SLI Premium NF4SLI 939) for an AMD chip (AMD|A64 X2 3800+ 2.0G 939 1M R)... and I keep getting this stupid error:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL... them some stop numbers below

I can't figure it out. I have rolled back drivers, for my Videocard... an Nvidia 7900 GT and I can enter safe mode with no issues. Does anyone have a clue, or even if Nvidia drivers work correctly in Win XP Media Center 2005? Its a gaming PC, did I mess up getting WinXP MC2005?

I am using a Zalman fan for the CPU, so I dont think the CPU is overheating cause otherwise it would happen in safe mode too ( I think)

It is not the RAM as I have switched out the modules (Corsair D550 TWINX2048-4400PRO) and it is not that. The only thing I can trace it to is the Video card. It happens everytime, and I am thinking perhaps there is not enough power going to the card ( 550W powersupply)
 

i_am_not_god

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wow dude i just had this the other day. I can tell you 1 thing, there is no problem with your graphics card, its either the graphics card driver, which i am pretty sure it is, i guess your using the beta 91.48. This problem caused me alot of shit during that day, i removed those 91.48 drivers using roll back and it caused fuck loads of problems with my nvidia chipset driver, it decided to remove some of the drivers for that to. I then got BSOD every time i booted up. If you get this then i suggest you boot in safe mode, reinstall the chipset drivers, be quick cause it will automatically reboot after 1 or 2 mins, after you reinstall chipset drivers do the same for your video drivers. Also out of curiosity, are you using raid? cause when i tried to reinstall windows after i kept getting corrupt files during installing windows xp, i didnt figure out what it was since i thought it could be the ram to, so i decided to use 1 hdd and 1 stick of 512mb ram and it seems to be working fine, now i reinstalled windows again on raid and dual channel and it works fine. But im pretty sure you just need to replace the chipset and video drivers.
Post back after you try them and i will try help you some more
 

plewis00_uk

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Update ALL your drivers and to WHQL certified ones if you can. When I was asked to look at a few laptops over the years where this was the error I checked to see what drivers were causing it and updated them. Last time I did this it was a 2001 non-certified wireless LAN card driver causing all the issues. So, update your drivers (and it wouldn't hurt to check your hard disk for defects, as I've seen this cause a problem with that error (mind you, only the once), RAM could play a part too so Memtest86 that - Windows error messages aren't always 100% specific).
 

elpresidente2075

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Got the same BSOD yesterday with an ASRock 939Dual-sataII. First time for that one though. Thinking it is related to heat, my room was very warm when I returned to work on my comp. Maybe the videocard's heatsink is not seated properly? Could also be related to the PS. Mine is pretty low quality, and when it gets warm, it tends to extremely lose power output.

Pretty sure its not MC2005. Most likely a hardware problem, usually the BSOD's come from that in all versions of WinXP, or at least that's been my experience. Oddly enough, the problems that throw BSOD have only been related to either overheating components or my crappy old hard drive.

Is your PS a name brand? Did you spend $$$ or $$ on it? Low quality ones like to not put out anywhere near as much (50-60% or so) as they are supposed to when they get hot.
 

foshizzle

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Short answer: I think there's a good chance it's your nVidia system drivers or graphics drivers. Completely uninstall them, restart, then reinstall them(not roll back) and see what happens.

Long answer: What are the stats on your whole system? I've gotten these errors before and they are annoying as heck because it literally can be like ANYTHING in your system causing it. When does the error occur? What are the numbers at the bottom? You can search Microsoft's knowledgebase on the numbers that you are getting at the bottom to see if they have any insight. If they are the generic error numbers (something like 000000x000000x000001) Microsoft won't help much.

You mention that you got a new motherboard...was it the only thing you replaced in your system? Or did you get the CPU new as well. I assume you started with a fresh install of Windows? Have you installed any hardware or changed any drivers or updated any BIOS-es recently? This error is caused by a driver so you'll just need to go through and uninstall and reinstall drivers like crazy until the problem goes away. It took me about 3 freakin' hours of this process to get my last error like this resolved because I didn't try the obvious solutions first...*sigh*

Don't just roll back your drivers, actually completely uninstall them and then reinstall them. Completely uninstall your nVidia drivers through Add/Remove Programs then restart then re-install the latest versions. It was my nVidia drivers causing the problem before so you want to try that first if you haven't already. If that doesn't work then go trial and error from there. Uninstall things one-by-one through the Device Manager and see what happens when you restart each time.

If your error is happening right when you boot up I'd recommend trying to "start with last known good configuration" and see if you can get into non-safe mode windows.

Hope this helps, sorry if I've said anything way too obvious just felt obliged to mention it.

Edit: lol, looks like 3 people responded while I was typing this
 

bmouring

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Yes, flakey drivers are often the source of this issue, but just to more firmly rule out the hardware I'd suggest some stress-testing of the hardware to make sure. Some good ones are memtest 86+ (for the memory of course), prime95 (for stressing the cpu), various vendor disk diagnostic tools (just a good thing to do), and lucifer (can be configured to stress basically your whole system).

All these can be found on the ultimate bootcd

Once your system passes these tests (should be run for at least a few hours each), then start looking at drivers.
 

Sithlord

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Ok, its getting weirder... I tried to install the Nvidia driver that came with the card... no dice. I also tried to download and install the latest driver for Windows XP Media Center, but when I try to install it, it tells me the system "can't locate the hardware associated with this product"...

WTH? I am using XP Media Center 2005, and Nvidia's OWN driver can't locate the GeForce 7900GT installed in my system? I tried to DL the eVGA driver and I could not even finish the DL, the system crashed. >.<

THEN... to top it... the Western Digital SATA HD crashes and wont boot now. It made some weird clicking sounds, and I am wondering if I burnt it out after all the reboots. Now I have to send it to Newegg. THIS is why I bought my last PC... lol
 

bmouring

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The primary goal of building it yourself is not to have the easiest path to a working computer, clearly buy a pre-built one is always the easiest way to get there.

That being said, a home build does not have to be impossible. As a matter of fact, with proper research and planning 95% of home builds can and do succeed. The first time.

I cannot overstress the importance of research before you start buying parts. Let others discover what works and what doesn't, or be prepared to assume that role yourself if you like bleeding edge stuff. But never, for example, let buying an ASUS board (notoriously finicky about power) and a no-name PSU catch you off guard when it won't POST.

Once you've figured out what you're buying, as you buy things make sure to pick reputable venders and hold on to receipts/shipping slips. This way, for the 5% of the time when a build fails (due to a component), you can return the faulty part as easily as possibly.

Once you've recieved the parts, read the manual. I mean it, really. I don't care how good you think you are, how many machines you've built, or how many years you've worked in a repair shop, the first thing should be to read at least the vital parts of the manual.

At this point, I hearitly suggest stressing the core components to make sure you're building on a solid hardware foundation. See my previous post for more details.

Once you have a stable basis, start adding the extra components. One by one and make sure the thing will still boot with no complaints and things that should show up in the BIOS are showing up.

Once everythings added, then do the installation as normal. For drivers, I always, always suggest downloading the drivers from the original manufacturrer's website if possible (i.e. nVidia instead of, say, eVGA) except in the case of the motherboard itself. if possible, download the latest from the mobo manufacturer's site, otherwise use the CD and then upgrade from the site.

Once Windows seems to be up, running, and stable do a second round of stability testing. Do thing within Windows. There are many suites out there to help you do this.

At this point, you have a great, stable system. I have used this technique countless times and it always ends with a sucessful build. It may require RMA'ing a component before you get there, but the process is set up to help you figure out that weak link as quickly as possible.

Hope this helps, and sorry if it sounds preachy or condecending, that's not the intention at all, just imparting knowledge I've gained through experience.
 

Sithlord

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That is good advice, and I appreciate the time it took. I did not feel it was condescending in any way, but I have to admit, I thought ... key word was "thought"..lol... that I could do this. I have built may PCs in the past, and I did it for a job for 4 years building C++ development boxes for a software firm, and I never had this issue. I admit, I have not been in the PC business for awhile and things go very fast when new hardware comes out. Its like we should now refer to every 5 months as “1 PC Year”.. lol

My main thing was frustration, as many others have felt in the past. I also have to consider; do I change the AMD chip board to Intel since Newegg (which is a good company I feel) gave me until June 29th to return any parts. So a time constraint is also a factor, and I just want my $2k paperweight to work correctly.

So the other issue was the BSOD a HDD issue with Western Digital, since it bombed out? Or was it the constant driver updates? Why does the Nvidia driver specifically built for Windows Media Center 2005 NOT see any hardware? Is WinXP MC2K5 an issue at all? And can I game with it? Things to think about.

I DO know the last time I tried to make an AMD 64 box, I had this issue and changed to Intel and it was fine. Yet, from what I have read on these forums, the Dual Core Intel chips (not counting Conroe), are not up to the AMD64 chip speed and functionality level.

So these are things I have to weigh and research, and I do think forums like this are a good starting point. Like it seems MANY people have issues with the same ASUS board I have, perhaps I should just change that. Yet, people that don’t have issues rarely post problems about it, so how many out there have no issues? Weird.

Oh and the Power supply is a good one I feel, it is from Rosewill, it’s a 550W modular PS. I only plug in the cables I need, kida neat.
 

bmouring

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Ya, the "PC year" really makes keeping up on stuff kinda tricky. However, it's like the build itself; if you have a solid foundation (of knowledge), then it's just a matter of adding in the other parts (learning only what's needed about the latest tech).

I must admit I haven't played with Windows Media Center personally, but I have heard from others that it can be finicky about it's drivers, as you are finding out.

Also, I would highly recommend that with a situation like this where you've switched around drivers a fair bit, either using System Restore to expunge the drivers or to reinstall, just so that you are on a "fresh install".

If time won't permit this level of tinkering, then you may wish to get back with Newegg about a system that is a bit more... forgiving. The upcoming stuff from Intel looks really really promising, if the timetable works out for you. There are many people around the forums that can give better suggestions here than I, since I deal primarily with the really-high-end workstation and server stuff.

If you do have time to tinker, by all means I say stick with it; you have quality components and in theory it should work great, it's just a matter of finding the small little catch that happened somewhere (likely in a Wizard or something like that) that is preventing your system from being stable. I would still suggest some stress testing, but the more I hear, the more it sounds like a video driver issue. Either try to get back to as close as a fresh install as possible or, if you have more tinker time and you've invested some time already in the configuration of the system, manually removing the video drivers is another option.
 

samir_nayanajaad

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just to put my 2 cents in the piggy bank...

first cent
I noticed the error was an irq error, have you tried to turn off all the stuff you dont use on your mobo in bios to free up some IRQ's? I disable my floppy, parallel port, serial port, IDE channel 2, firewire port, ect. in BIOS just because I never use or hardly use any of thoes.

second cent
Maybe if your mobo does SLI is there some switch or something you have to change to use or not use the SLI. This may have been set to sli or something on accedent or at the factory. On my MSI mobo there is a little card between the 2 pci 16x slots that I have to unplug, flip, then place back in to use SLI.
 

MrsD

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Sith, I didnt read the whole thread so forgive me. It seems your having trouble loading windows and your getting stop errors? Do the errors change?
I had this issue recently and it was the ram. Find out what voltage your DDR2 is supposed to run at and make sure you memory settings on the motherboard is set to that voltage in the bios. The memory might not be getting enough juice. This fixed my windows stop error problems.
 

vortix

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I would recommend doing a search on the ASUS site for this problem. I had this problem on my P5N32 SLI deluxe board as well. It seems to be an issue on some asus boards in some configurations (I know that's vague, but I don't think the problem was ever root caused to the best of my knowledge). If you have not updated your bios, i would recommend this as well. Also, the new asus boards can be pretty memory sensitive. You might try relaxing your memory timings/frequency and see if the problem persists. I currently have OCZ gold DDR2 that's specced for 666Mhz with 3-3-3-3-8 1t timings, but I am running 500 5-4-4-4-12 2t because that's the only way I could get it to run stable with this board after the 02xx bios series (which ran the memory at specced timings, 1t, and 700Mhz with no issues). Basically you're in for alot of trial and error finding a stable setup. I will be avoiding asus boards due to the issues I've had with mine.

In short, I believe this problem on my board was memory related, but did not do enough experiments to say for certain. Best of luck.
 

Kha

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Have you installed nVidia hardware firewall drivers?

If yes, please try disable first and if thsi does not fix the problem, uninstall completelly the nVidia firewall.

Good luck and kind regards.
 

SRRAE

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What are you doing when this error occurs?

I thought I had a problem with my system as it kept blue screening. Searched on the internet for the possible problem and it suggestions of sound card problems where found, which I suspected.

I tried everything from new drivers, to old drivers and even taking the card out and using the onboard card, but it still happened.

More searching found that it was a problem with the game (In this instance it was EVE)
 

jrnyfan

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After reading (ok glancing) over all the other posts, here is what I think is going on because I have had the SAME EXACT problem with my system below. I have tried everything and I know that one of the things below fixed it but Im not sure if they all need to be done or if just one does :oops:

1. MANUALLY set your CL to 2.5. AMD chips DO NOT like a CAS Latency of 2 for whatever reason. I set mine to 2.5 and then switched it over to auto on my timings in my BIOS and forgot that my RAM has a latency of 2 by default after tearing my hair out for weeks, I remembered that. If you are worried about your memory, run MEMTEST overnight

2. Go to guru3d.com and download a mix-match group of drivers for the nForce4 boards. The problem usually lies in these drivers and how they interact with everything else...good luck removing them cause you can't remove them all ( :evil: nvidia) so remove what you can and then install the hodgepodge.

3. go to http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?start=201&catid=13&threadid=3759 and download the nv4disp.dll fix. It closes the memory register in BIOS which might help.

Good luck, hope this helps...if not go to the nvidia forums and read around...or google it and you will see you aren't alone...that's good news i suppose :lol:

MSI K8N-Neo2
AMD 4200+
2gb (4x512mb) Crucial Ballistix
evga 6800gt
 

jrnyfan

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there is a dual core driver out there, you get it from either your asus cd or from the amd site...i doubt that is it though
 

Sithlord

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Mobeus, I wanted WinXP MCE2005 so I can connect to my XB360. I was under the impression that it was 98%XP with some silly 2% media functionality built in. I didn't think that would make a difference.

As far as timing, when I get the HDD back from Newegg I can try the memory timing and freeing up some IRQ's in the BIOS.

Is there a link to messing with the BIOS that I can look at?
 

jrnyfan

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'messing with the BIOS'... :lol: that even makes me nervous.

basically if you dont know what it does or what will happen if you do it you shouldn't muck with it...feel free to email me at jrnyfan_e@hotmail.com if you want to talk about it and i can walk you through it.

if you choose to do it on your own, keep your book handy from ASUS and know where the CMOS is and how to clear it so that if you eff it up you can clear the CMOS and start over...BIOS is tricky stuff but a slow and steady hand can win this race.

good luck with that, feel free to drop me a line if you would like.
 

Sithlord

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I appreciate it. I have done things in the BIOS of machines before, I just have never attempted to change the clock speeds, or multipliers or even disable hardware that I dont use, and I know I could really mess it up if I am not careful.

So when i get the new HDD and vid card back, I will email you for some info. That would be great.
 

_Cosmin_

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I had same IRQ problem with my X64 and it was from sound drivers. I uninstall the Nvidia audio and install the Realtek one, now it works just fine.