(Bit of a read im afraid)

Right could do with some thoughts (helpful ones frog!)

Right the other day after playing CSS i suht down the PC as normal and then came back to it later and every time it started I would get BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) even on reverting to an earlier version.

So seeing as i had just installed 2x raid 0 drives 2x160gb WD caviar and 2x250gb WD Caviar drives. I thought it must be the install of vista corrupted because of the lack of error checking on the raid 0 so i thought I would format and reinstall. Now when installing and rebooting for the first time i get BSOD with the message.

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

So after trying it twice I thought it must be that Raid which was faulty and so I retried swapping the drives and installing on the other raid.

but again on the reboot i get
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

So i tried un-Raiding the drives and installing and still get

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

so I think it must be a hardware error. Now I ran the MS memtest which come on the Vista disk and no errors. and also ran memtest86?? (cant remeber name) and also came up clear.

I am going to try and swap out the ram when I get home with my old PC.

I was woundering if anyone has had this problem or can think of a solution??

I am hoping its not the CPU as I would be well cross!!

(I believe all the cooling is working I have 2x120mm fans front and back and Artic cooler 64 on cpu which usually keeps the cpu below 40oC)

(The system was running fine for a week with the raid setup! befoe any problems started)


My system

AMD 4600+ X2 64bit 939
DFI Lanparty CFX3200 (latest bios)
2gb Ocz premier ram 4x512mb
2xWD caviar 16mb 250gb HDD
2xWD Caviar SE 8mb 160gb HDD
1x 200gb samsung SP2004 Spinpoint HDD
Sapphire X1950xtx 512mb Graphics card
X-fi Fata1ity pro.
Hiper 580w Type-R PSU

Trying to install Vista Home Premium 64bit edition.


Wel done for reading it all

how about you post the full error message so i can tell you what it means

possible causes so far:

- AMD procesor
- AMD GPU
- Raid0

(its not your memory!)

rofl!

will post full BSOD later

but tried installing without raid set up on single drive and still get it

i can tell you now its not a hardware thing, its something trying to access a restricted section of memory in the Kernel...

what you are looking at here is:

- Non AMD drivers (including raid/io drivers)
- virus (AMD Drivers included)
- Any Kernel hooking stuff.. firewalls, virus scanners.. etc
- etc etc.. anything that would mess with the kernel

Hmm ok.

But im trying to do a fresh install on new formatted Hard drives.

I don't see how it could be most of those reasons as no firewalls or other drivers have even been used yet? just the ones on the initial Vista install and it installed ok before?

But will get you a picture of the BSOD.

If it is a virus how do I clean it without having an OS on the drives as tehy are formatted blank??

I Could try installing XP first I suppose.

Bah annoying me now!

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL





= RAM installed incorrectly

if the ram was bad it would not get passed the POST, or the BIOS would halt the boot after it attempts to test the ram.

if you posted the BSOD message then i can probably work out what it is . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

could i also make another suggestion....

don't install the heap of shit known as vista.

if I were you I would take it back and get a refund on the grounds of "non functioning software".

I had such a bsod last week...GFX driver replacement was helpful...think so , coz it didnt show up till now.

not necessarily frog.... the error message relates to the 2nd or more stick of ram...

as alarm has said he has 4 * 512mbs

up to 512mbs of ram usage there shudnt be a problem.. only after he goes over the 512mb limit and starts using another stick.. then there is a problem...

so...

the bios shud be ok cos it dosent use 512mbs to run...

when he starts using a memory intensive program and the threshold of 512 is reached then the bsod appears...


however im not sure why he gets the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL msg

as all the ram sticks are the same

he should only be getting this if say for eg:

slot 1 has a 512mb

and

slot 3 has a 1gb stick...

now that shud result in a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

but also @ alarm..

until you post the exact message (which includes all those 0's) then we cant help more specifically

ok I get but at work at the mo. so I will take a piccie as soon as I get home as its not on screen for very long before reboot!

Ok i defo. think that its a hardware problem.

and im thinking its my CPU I got rid of the raid setup and just tried installing on just 1 HDD plugged in. And just flicking through the install menus took an age and each one loaded up slowly!! I mean real slooowww.

Pretty goddamn pissed off at the mo.

I found thant the north / southbridge cooler wasn't on properly or the TIM has deteriated

So Im gonna leave it for the weekend!! im off up north for Sat and Sun. and my bank holiday is goning to be made up of me taking my PC to PCses (lol) and set it all up on a table outside the case and re-tim all the components and start from scratch

gah its not anything until you post the message

it could just be a dodgy driver and now your taking the whole thing apart...?

I was going to try and re-install and get the BSOD code in full but my PC was soo slow it took over an hour for it to load up which drive to install Vista on?????.

But I cannot imagine its a driver as I installed it before without it BSODing! You got to remember that this is just trying to get Vista to install full stop before any 3rd party drivers.

so im pretty sure its a hardware thing not drivers as I dont even get to a point to install them!