PC crash problems - help please.

danmanchester

Just opened Task Manager and under performance shows CPU usage bouncing up and down between 0% to 10% and PF Usage (is that the RAM?) at 229mb.

Marchocias

Task manager seems about normal. PF is the Pagefile, nothing to worry about here. I think it's safe to rule out your webcam and printer as the cause of the problem... Which graphics card do you have, and have you updated drivers for it recently?

danmanchester

The graphics is just what came with the pc: Nvidia geforce2 mx. Went to device manager to see if there were any driver updates and it said could not find a better match than already installed.

Marchocias

Seems unlikely there'd be any problems with a 2MX, they haven't released driver updates that affected the 2 series for some time. The driver update button through device manager is worse than useless for graphics cards, by the way - it doesn't actually check with the manufacturer, just with Microsoft's own tiny database of horribly slow and cut-down drivers.

Discounting any new devices and drivers, there are four main causes of the IRQL blue screen:

1. Seriously bad sectors on hard drive (unlikely but possible - especially if your PC usually crashes whilst writing DVD's or similar)
2. Faulty RAM (likely)
3. Power supply not supplying enough power (very unlikely if you've never had problems with it before)
4. Miscellaneous motherboard fault (unlikely)

I'd suggest:

Run Scandisk, then defragment your hard drive. (Right-click on the drive icon & select tools).
Then download and run the excellent free tool Memtest from here. It should be able to point out any problems with your RAM.
(Some people find the above program a bit fiddly - if you can't get on with it, try the much simpler, although slightly less effective, program here.)

Best of luck!

wallace_3

If I am reading the first screenshot correctly, the error message is "Driver irql not less or equal".

The error message is typically associated with a bad driver, or faulty or incompatible hardware or software. Try looking at this website for troubleshooting suggestions:
http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.php#0x0a

Marchocias

I think we've pretty much ruled out the driver possibility for this one.

The error is actually caused when a hardware process tries to access a memory location it does not have permission for, and is just as likely to be caused by faulty memory or other hardware components as driver software.

Sadly Windows XP only produces a handful of generic error messages which are of little use in tracking down the fault. The vast majority of random Blue Screens of Death suffered by XP users give the IRQL message.

Chippy_Minton

danmanchester wrote:

The reason for the BSOD is given by Stop 0x000000D1 or DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. OK, it's fairly generic but in your case it's caused by afd.sys. afd.sys is a driver related to TCP/IP, so I would do the following:

1. Insert your Windows CD. Start - Run - sfc/scannow
2. Update the drivers for your network adapter. Do this in Control Panel - Network Connections. Right-click Local Area Connections - Properties. Click Configure. Driver tab - Update Driver. Or install the latest drivers from the network adapter's web site. If your network adapter is built into the motherboard, get them from the motherboard maker's web site.

Also, what OS and service pack are you running?

Clive1975

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem, traced it to the crap USB frog modem. Swapped for a router, also via USB and no problems since!

arealhighlander

The Blue Screen of Death with the IRQ Less than or Equal to error is normally either caused by an Interrupt IRQ problem or a bad memory problem.

Have a look on Google using keywords BSOD and IRQ Not Less Equal.

You could try reseating your memory chips, but I would start with the Webcam and printer. Always start with the last thing you did before it stopped working :-)