BSOD IRQL_Not_Less_Or_Equal

[Chuck Engels]

My Dell 8400 has started getting this error recently, very annoying I must say.
I have checked the internet and there are various reasons, hardware, RAM, Processor Temp, Hard Drive Failure,...

I have run Scandisk on the primary drive and it seems fine, can't verify the CPU Temp, haven't had any new hardware added in over a year, the RAM has been installed for a couple of years, no new software in at least 6 months.

Does anyone have experience with diagnosing this problem?

[Bobby]

Those problems are difficult to diagnose as there is really no information supplied and even the message itself may be a red herring.

The most likely problem in my experience is a rogue device driver. Did you install anything recently? It is sometimes useful to do a system restore, although I don't like to do that. You can also use MSCONFIG to turn off all startup programs and services and see if it recurs. On the other hand, if you do this, not too much is going to run!

You could also just do a standard hardware checkout - open the box and make sure the processor and RAM are seated correctly, and check other cables.

But it is pretty much of a "try to remove something and see what happens" type of diagnostic.

That makes me think of my old days back at IBM where we had extensive diagnostics for all hardware. But that was why you paid multi-millions for a mainframe!

Bob

[Chuck Engels]

Thanks Bob, that is kind of what I was afraid of. I hate those problems that are trail and error to fix

I have reseated all PCI cards and RAM, I even removed two sticks of 256mb that came with the machine and just left the newer 2 x 1gb sticks.
I updated the drivers about a month ago, but this just started happening yesterday.

I will wait and see if my latest efforts have been worthwhile, if not I will continue to try other things.
Thanks

[Bobby]

Well if it just started yesterday, do a checkpoint restore back to two days or so ago. This shouldn't impact your system too much.

If that doesn't do it, then we have an interesting result. If is was software or a driver and the problem truly started yesterday, then restoring back should fix it. If it doesn't, that points more and more towards hardware.

Keep us posted or email direct if you wish...

Bob

[Chuck Engels]

I also removed an old capture card that was just wasting a PCI slot, that and the 2 sticks of RAM.
Now the system has been stable for the past few hours

[Bobby]

If all is OK, let's test the RAM. Call the set in now A and the set you took out B.

1) Take out A and put B back in the same sockets they were originally. If you again have failures, set B is probably bad.

2) If not, take out B and put it in the sockets originally occupied by A. If it fails, that is not conclusive.

3) Take out B and put A back in the original B slots. If it fails, that is also not conclusive.

4) If still working, put A and B all back in. If it doesn't fail, your original test (remove B) didn't yield valid results.

Not conclusive means that the symptoms aren't consistent and probably means something else is wrong, not necessarily the RAMs.


Or, just put B back in and see what happens!

Bob


Bob

[Chuck Engels]

The other RAM is only 2 x 256mb sticks, I don't really care about it and they aren't worth much.
I wish there was enough time to do the tests but there isn't, there are bigger fish to fry
My machine has been running fine all day now, that's good enough for me.

I test and diagnose computers and software all day at my real job, hate having to do it at home too.

[Bobby]

...I test and diagnose computers and software all day at my real job...

Me too! And my sniffer says you are not done yet. Take good backups...

Bob