Comp issues

[nadriel]

Right, I have this lovely new comp. Unfortunately, it keeps crashing on me.

I'm getting a blue screen with DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

It only crops up when I run certain applications, and not with any regularity (but quite a bit of frequency when using said programs).

Given that the programs are: Windows Media Player, Winamp, Intervideo WinDVD and Ventrilo (a voice chat program), I'm working on it being something to do with the sound card.

I've got onboard sound, which I disabled and removed the drivers for to use my better sound card which I've put in.

So, any fellow techies out there who've got suggestions? I've poked around on some tech websites, but they aren't too helpful without me actually going through a lengthy signup process, so I thought I'd ask here first, as I know there are several people reading this journal who are much better at support/hardware than me...

Comments

[lokean.livejournal.com]

The reason racoon_boy found it referencing so many different things is that the error is the result of something trying to read or write to an incorrect address (this can be caused by bad RAM or faulty connections but is usually the result of non-MS products being bitched at by the OS)

I'm going to guess that the stop BSD is referencing the stop code: 0xA and the third error parameter is 0x0. If so, it's almost certainly due to one of the sound drivers trying to access the wrong address; that happens a lot with properitary drivers on XP. Crazy as it sounds, it's often a successful workaround to swap a couple of DIMMs around, I don't know why it works but it often does. Try that one first.

Assuming that's no use you might want to set XP up to do full kernel dumps and find the driver responsible.

[nadriel.livejournal.com]

*sigh* How tedious. Oh well, I'll get it sorted, one way or another :-)

[lokean.livejournal.com]

I'm also going to suggest you try *downgrading* the sound card driver to one that the gits at MS have digitally signed, if one exists.

[nadriel.livejournal.com]

Um, like the one I'm using?

[lokean.livejournal.com]

Oh, regarding finding the driver, it shouldn't be that hard, the stop code ought to have four parameters at the end, the first is the address that couldn't be referenced, the second in the request level, the third is read/write (0/1) and the fourth is the referencing address. I haven't looked at a kernel dump recently but I seem to recall the loaded drivers being listed, along with the memory they've allocated. Comparing that to the last parameter of the stop code should tell you which driver is going tits up.

[nadriel.livejournal.com]

Okay, watch me embarass myself, but how do you do a kernel dump with XP?

[lokean.livejournal.com]

It ought to be set up to do small dumps by default but that might not help if it's a stealth fuckup (and if it's a digitally signed driver it probably is)

So, control panel -> System Properties -> 'Advanced' tab -> Startup and Recovery panel: Click settings. There should be a drop down menu, currently set to small memory dump, near the bottom. Set it to a kernel dump and uncheck the overwrite box.

Then, go and crash your computer three times. The three memory dumps ought to be MEM*.DMP (can't remember if it's MEMORY2.DMP for the second but I think so). They *should*, if memory serves, have the drivers' allocated memory listed along with the stop code but just to be sure, copy down the parameters of the stop code manually when it occurs, too.