Blue Screen

[Denis]

My machine crashed twice today, both times I got a blue screen with
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL at the top - I could not read much more as the
machine rebooted after a short time while some information was dumped to the
hard drive.

After restarting I got a window giving details of the problem:
Problem Signature: Blue Screen
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 2057

Additional Information about problem:
BCCode a
BCP1 75FFFE4
BCP2 00000002
BCP3 00000001
BCP4 81CADC36
OS version 6_0_6000
Service Pack 0_0
Product 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
D:\Windows\Minidump\Mini101607-02.dmp
D:\Users\alan\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-77093-0.sysdata.xml
D:\Users\alan\AppData\Local\Temp\WER97B7.tmp.version.txt

On clicking "Check for Solution to the problem" button after a while the
window disappeared and no solution came up.

Any idea what could be causing the crashes? The only changes I made to the
computer today was to uninstall a trial version of a pdf creating program
and installing a later version of the same program.

 

[Guest]

Hi there Denis,

Are you able to post the .dmp file somewhere to grab it? Or you could
probably e-mail it to me. I'd like to debug it and see if it comes up with
anything specific in it.

 

[Denis]

Hi William

I can email the files to you but I don't have your email address - the one
below does not work.

Denis

 

[Guest]

go ahead and send it to my mail at (e-mail address removed).

Let me know when you send it off as I don't normally monitor that e-mail.

 

[Adam Albright]

My machine crashed twice today, both times I got a blue screen with
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL at the top - I could not read much more as the
machine rebooted after a short time while some information was dumped to the
hard drive.

Blue Screens of Death or BSOD for short are sometimes due to Windows
being very fragile and when it or some application misbehaves badly
enough it often will crash the system required a reboot. Other times
there are real hardware issues.

A more technical explanation is BSOD's are actually stop errors which
happen when Windows experiences some critical system malfunction. In
no particular order stop errors can be caused by a corrupted Registry,
poorly written or incompatible DLL (dynamic link libraries) bad
memory, etc.. What happens is the kernel, the heart of the operating
system experiences some error that it can't recover from. To protect
itself, it tries to make a memory dump of the current state of the
system, then throws up a BSOD, then the system "dies", hence why it is
called a Blue Screen of Death.

Most BSOD screens will show the stop error. In your case:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Followed by four values within parentheses. Sometimes the screen will
list the memory address where the problem happened and the driver that
caused it. You may get a list of other drivers loaded, which usually
have nothing to do with the stop error.

While there is a option to click for a possible solution, rarely does
this offer any. So what's left is to attempt to decipher the gibberish
you see.

Begin by doing a Google search for the stop error you see.

These are not absolutes and what causes them vary. At best you can do
some detective work. Frequently a IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL means your
CPU has overheated or your memory has problems or is damaged. Memory
can be tricky in that it may be fine or so appear to be 99% of the
time yet be damaged where the system keeps crashing but without any
pattern as to what causes it.

If that don't resolve it, could be something has gone bad on your
motherboard. Next to the CPU, the next two most important chips are
the North and South bridges. They are oversized chips, but you may not
see them since they are often under a heat sink or fan. If they
overheat, that's bad news since they control memory and hard drive
access mostly.

So often it becomes a case of trial and error to find what's wrong.
Start with the most obvious, like bad drivers, then move to the
Registry, if those seem ok, then move next to looking at overheating
or something physically wrong with your motherboard or something else.
Often the only way to find what's wrong is one at a time remove any
external cards and by trial and error see if you find if that resolves
the problem.

Good luck.

 

[Pete]

..dmp file on its way

go ahead and send it to my mail at (e-mail address removed).

Let me know when you send it off as I don't normally monitor that e-mail.

 

[Pete]

I am grateful for the information provided. I suspect that memory is at the
root of this problem. This is a dual boot machine and I've for the most
part been using the XP installation but over several months have suffered
from system freeze ups (less so of late) - everything just freezes and I
have to hit the reset button.

Today I decided to use the Vista installation as my main computer and as
soon as I did that I got the blue screens! I guess I'll have to replace the
memory and see what happens.

 

[Guest]

Hey there Pete,

It looks like it stripped the attachment. Try renaming the extension to
..dm_ or something, that way it'll get through OK.

The issue could very well be memory, but IRQL errors could also be
motherboard or processor. Do you have someplace you could take it to be
tested?

 

[Guest]

Hey there Pete,

It looks like it stripped the attachment. Try renaming the extension to
..dm_ or something, that way it'll get through OK.

The issue could very well be memory, but IRQL errors could also be
motherboard or processor. Do you have someplace you could take it to be
tested?

 

[Denis]

I've changed the extension to xxx, hope it gets through.