IRQL_not_less_or_equal errors

[Squidmaster]

Over the past week I have begun getting Windows blue screens with the "IRQL_not_less_or_equal" error. I have tried to find out about this error online, but beyond the basic, non-specific symptoms, the information gets extremely technical. Can I get some help on this?

Here are the last 2 blue screen sets of data. Both happened within about a day of each other.

Blue screen 1:
STOP: 0x0000000A (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x805226F8)

Blue screen 2:
STOP: 0x00000077 (0xC0000185, 0xC0000185, 0x00000000, 0x0586A000)

After blue screen #2 (last night, and it sat on that screen for about 8 hours as I was asleep), a soft reboot did not post. I then did a hard reset, which also did not post. The 2nd hard reset posted and I'm using my computer as if nothing is wrong, only with the knowledge that I will get more of these screens in the days to come.

An interesting note after the 2nd screen that I recorded is that the in-Windows debugging info listed the same codes as blue screen #1 even though the info was different on the actual blue screen. I imagine all of these are due to the same issue, but I don't know what that issue is.

A couple relevant points:

The first blue screen (not recorded above) happened about a week ago. I did not record this one as it had not occurred before, but I think it mentioned video drivers in there somewhere, because my first instinct when I recovered from the error was to run Windows Update and get a new display driver, which was available. The two errors listed above have happened since that upgrade. None of the hardware nor drivers in my machine have been touched for months leading into this issue, which started before the video driver update anyway. Windows has done some updates on its own at shutdown and that is it.

These screens have happened generally after the system has been on for hours, though that may be random chance. I had iTunes running during 2 of them but not during another, which occurred while I was backing up data in lieue of the issue.

Each time I have ultimately been able to recover into Windows. All but one of the times, Windows has given me the "Windows has recovered from a serious error" message, which then points me to very vague information that isn't entirely helping me here. One of the times, Windows just started as normal with no error reporting of any kind.

My Windows installation is a holdover from a couple years ago, and I have added almost entirely new hardware since that time, including the motherboard. Since Windows continued to operate and my health is horrible, I just continued using it as is.

What should I do? I am considering uninstalling my video driver completely and reinstalling it via Windows Update. Is this the best opening move? Ultimately I could reinstall my OS but, as stated, my health is terrible and I would prefer to do the simplest things first.

Thanks for your time.

Update:

I just did a virus scan. It was negative, but revealed two disturbing tidbits listed below.

■C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig$\KB956390-IE7\SP2QFE\advpack.dll - Unable to scan: The system cannot read from the specified device
■C:\WINDOWS\system32\DEFAULT.ECW - Unable to scan: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

Could these be at the root of the problem. Either way, how do I repair these?

 

[amdfangirl]

The blue screen data can be referenced by Microsoft or Google.

 

[Squidmaster]

Only in part. If you are basically just telling me to do a search, I did that, and the information is vague at best. I have serious health issues as well so extended searches of this type are not possible.

 

[montyuk]

if it referenced video drivers and you let automatic updates get the new version i imagine it didnt uninstall the old ones completely first,

go to the suppliers website, be that ati or nvidia and get the latest drivers for your card.

in device manager select your card and click uninstall, when prompted to reboot do so, when you get back to the desktop cancel the automatic installer that will come up and run the exe that you downloaded from the suppliers website.

also theres a program called drive sweeper which ive seen recommended a few times to people having driver issues as it removes all traces of the drivers so nothings left behind from the old drivers prior to installing the new ones.

 

[Squidmaster]

It didn't send me to Windows Update, but I went there myself based on the information received. Since my original posting I have run thorough HD and memory diagnostics. Both check out, though the hard drive failed the initial SMART test, the reason being too many reallocated sectors.

I will completely uninstall my video drivers next and see if it works.

 

[montyuk]

have a look at these -

Stop 0x00000077
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315266 - this one says you should install the latest windows service pack 2 and 3 to resolve

also method 2 on this page mentions running a chkdsk and with your smart error - this should be high on your list of things to do

Stop 0x0000000A
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314063 - bigger issue, when you installed windows did you get any errors?

fix 77 and hopefully A will go away.

 

[montyuk]

just looked up the default.ecw and advpack.dll - both in a way are related to the installation of creative soundcards (one is the driver, the other is a .inf file reader which is using for installing drivers), do you have one of these?

im guessing theres a fault with the driver on the soundcard, use device manager to uninstall, use add/remove to uninstall any and all soundcard related software, goto the creative website and download the latest software for your card and see if that helps.

 

[Squidmaster]

Yes, another poster on another forum suggested that the driver in question was a Creative product. I had an audigy in my computer, but haven't for about 6 months now since replacing the motherboard. I now use onboard sound on a much newer motherboard, figuring it would be at least as good as an Audigy series 1 card from years ago.

After my initial posting I had to reset my computer after a World of Warcraft lockup, and the system did a checkdisk on the way in, which found default.ecw along with 2 other disk errors. The scan erased default.ecw and corrected the other two errors theoretically. Maybe this will solve my problem, but I am still going to re-install my video drivers as per your recommendation.

 

[montyuk]

wait, see if you get any bsod first....

 

[Squidmaster]

It appears the checkdisk corrected the problem. Thanks for your help!

 

[Squidmaster]

Ok, a week and a half went by with no errors, and now I'm getting them again. I got 3 within the past 24 hours in fact despite reinstalling my video and audio drivers. I was unable to figure out how to reinstall my motherboard drivers or I would have done that as well.
The latest message was a PFN LIST CORRUPT instead of the IRQL issue, which happened earlier in the same day.
I ran the event viewer and see lots of Event 7023 errors from within about a minute earlier in the evening, like the one copied below:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7023
Date: 12/27/2008
Time: 12:08:08 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ANDY
Description:
The Application Management service terminated with the following error:
The specified module could not be found.
The offending file seems to be netevent.dll
I'm getting in way over my head here, and I don't know what to do. Can you help?

 

[montyuk]

this might come in useful - http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

PFN is listed on the left column about half way down, it will hopefully link you to something that might assist you in this matter.

the general gist i have found whilst googling that particular error is either bad ram or a driver issue.

 

[Squidmaster]

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, that site is pretty out of date, so only one of the articles exists. It gives me data about which page frames were involved but that doesn't really help solve the problem. It also says I should use a kernel debugger. I would have absolutely no idea what to do with a kernel debugger or the data it produced.

Is there a way I can find out if it is memory or a driver, and if so, which driver? I ran memtest for 14 hours with no errors, but I know that isn't a foolproof thing. I realize I may have to reinstall Windows, but I really don't want to do this until I know if it will solve the problem.

 

[Zoron]

It wouldn't hurt to update you motherboard's BIOS either... that can sometimes fix strange errors. You might also consider running driver cleaner to remove any trace of Creative's drivers that may have been left behind.

Good luck!

 

[sliptapg]

I've personally gone through a similar hell.

If you download:http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx
Debugging Tools For Windows.

Download that program, and download the symbols package. You can use that to decode the memory dumps that the computer makes with that BSOD.


Basically, when you get a BSOD, Windows "dumps" all of the physical memory and makes a "report" of the problem. These files are stored in your WINDOWS\Minidump folder. You should see something like "Mini041708-01.dmp" (i.e. MiniDump April 17,2008 - Dump number 01). Anyway, you can read those files with those debugging tools. If you sift through the file (don't freak out about all of the hexidecimal), it should state what program or file caused the BSOD.

Now, before you start, you may want to google "STOP: 0x0000000A" and read up on what happens to get a better understanding...I am by no means an expert on this. However, this way, you atleast have a clue about whats causing the problem.