Helpwith PC plz

[Belkin]

Hi,

I'm pissed off and need help.

Im running Win2K OS and have a Alcatel Speedtouch 330 DSL modem for my broadband.

I updated the modem drivers from the manufacturers website last night. Logged onto Wolf ET, no probs. Then checked out NC1 Pluto (as I haven'tgot NC2 yet), no probs there either.

Before I updated the drivers on the modem I kept getting blue screens and my PC would re-boot. Yesterday I thought I had the problem cracked.

Itry to get to Wolf ET today and I get a blue screen with the following message:

Driver IRQL not less than or equal. Dumping physical memory.

It was either word for word that message or very similar anyway.

I have AVG anti virus and the free version of Zone Alarm. Both are fullyup to date. I have SP4 on 2K as well.

Sooooo WTF is going on?

Any Ideasplease let me know.

ta
B


Update:

Have been advised to update drivers on new sound card (Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS). I can down load the drivers but when I try to install them I get a blue screen.

Have tried to run a Trojan scanner, gets about 2 mins into scan and then blue screens.

I'll keep you up to date if i have anything else to report

B

Update part 2:

Have swapped over soundcard and Ethernet card in PCI slots. Have left what I think may be a corrupt PCI slot free.

Managed to update soundcard drivers and run trojan scanner. Trojan scanner shows that I have none (that it detected anyway)

Visiting old Pluto server now seems fine. Wolf ET servers are still a problem. Have uninstalled Wolf ET via add/remove programmes, went to re-install Wolf ET and blue screened.

[[TgR]KILLER]

as it is doing a memory dump.. to trough.

start / settings / control panel

system and then advanced.. preformance options.. ( virtual memory ) and push it up a bit.. since i got loads of hd space i always have a few GB free.. pic of what i meen http://home.planet.nl/~achte311/settings.jpg

you could try checking your hardware system / hardware / device manager..

pff another option. check control panal / administrative tools and then computer management.. you can check the computer logs there see if you can find anything strange.. and check if the soundcard or any other card you got installed aint on a double IRQ with something ( pic here ) http://home.planet.nl/~achte311/compmana.jpg


how much ram do you have ? maybe there is a program that checks for free ram or something.. and if you have spare ram you can try to swap it..

another note.. how clean is your comp from the inside.. the old comp has a msi mobo that was SOOO sensetive a little dust caused rampages in the system so far windows wouldn't boot.. cleaning it solved it again..

all i could think off for now :X

[HusK]

Another intresting thing to check when it comes to stability (although not likely to be directly related with yours) is how much Watt you actualy have reserved for your CPU / memory / etc drain.

I'm talking about the +5V and +3.3V - those two combined should get to atleast 160W for an average stable system, 180 is prefered for higher systems and 200W for extreem systems. (just a quick grab out of the hand, the real need for stability differs on setup)

Check up your power supplier inside your case, look for the Ampere's it says it gives for the +5V and 3.3V, then do the following calculation:
(((5V*A)+(3.3V*A))/3)*2= Answer

There are alot of power supply's out there that seem good because their total power output can reach for example 400W - but that are few that are actualy any good when it comes to powering the right hardware with the required power use.

(note that this is a bit hard to translate for me from dutch so it may not sound totaly correct in terms of naming etc...)

Other than that, killer has said much of what you should check out, possibly you need a reinstall, but before you go there it would be wise to check on everything multiple times and think logicaly, not to mention to search on newsgroups like www.deja.com (google newsgroups)

Keep us posted on any changes or updates to your findings, perhaps at a later point I/we can be of some more help.

(hmm, also remember your bios settings have much to do with stability, and auto settings aren't allways preferable when it comes to that;) check your hardware fully in details, background and user experience, and the thing with your slots... you probably don't have a broken one, just a device of a type thats conflicting in that particular PCI slot)

[Belkin]

Right,it's late atm and i've been at the pub so I won'tfuck around too much atm. Ihave pushed up that virtual memory things,it was almost the same as killers before i touched it tho.

In my IRQ folder it shows the following on the same numbers:

17 SU 180 Raid Controller
17 Realtek Ethernet
17 OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 (cant remember what that is, firewire??)

also:

16 Nvidia GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
16 Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS

It could be that my mobo is dirty. Iknow when I put ther sound card in I saw some dust in the PCI slot, that could be at least part of the problem.

[[TgR]KILLER]

yea i dust could be the problem..

but i don't think having all those things on the same IRQ's doesn't help eighter.. i think you used to be aible to change them when in the divice manager screen and clicking on something like your vid.. on the last tab you should have resourses.. check if the vid and your soundcard and your network card and raid controller and i think firewire don't have conflicts there..

[Morpheous]

Power... look out for PSUs that give substandard 12 volt rail Amperage. 18A is running a P4 fine here- older PSUs (Powering Pentium 2/3) needed buckets of +5 and no +12, but P4s switched to 12v rail.

Apart from that- if you can get to a desktop, install Motherboard Monitor 5 and check the voltages from there, and/or temps.

Dust won't help either

[HusK]

Power... look out for PSUs that give substandard 12 volt rail Amperage. 18A is running a P4 fine here- older PSUs (Powering Pentium 2/3) needed buckets of +5 and no +12, but P4s switched to 12v rail.

Apart from that- if you can get to a desktop, install Motherboard Monitor 5 and check the voltages from there, and/or temps.

Dust won't help either

Though somewhat true, the +12V is still far less important than the +5 and +3.3 for P4 mainboards (Of this I was informed by extensive technical knowladge coming directly from intel, but however is FYEO (in this case thus FMEO and I can't post that shit:p)

Anyway, get your freaking soundcard to another PCI slot ASAP! Your videocard should be on his own completely, no shared IRQ's there. Usualy the best thing is to put the soundcard in the last PCI slot, but it can differ per mainboard.

Also - your Raid controller - try getting it on a not shared IRQ aswell, if not for stability, it will increase performance. And yes the IEEE 1394 is firewire - nic and the fireware shouldn't matter to much on sharing IRQ's, but if its possible, its always best to have as much hardware on a unique IRQ adres.
I know IRQ's are far less important now as they where in the days of DOS/win9x systems, but they are still important for stability.

Hope this solves atleast some of the problems, or at the least increases overal performance.

A small sidenote - normaly looking for instability, I start looking for cpu/memory problems, take a good look at your mainboard to, especialy the transistors - one of them might have popped, the system will simply continue to work with a few popped transistors, but it gets far less stable, and less the more they are popped (popped - means they are leaking, you can see this at the top of them, they stop being functional when they leak (duh))

I recommend the following tool for some testing: Burnintest

See: http://www.passmark.com/download/

Its one one of those tools that help you identify problems with certain aspects of your system.

[Belkin]

How do you change the IRQs then Husk?.

Cheers
B

[[TgR]KILLER]

on the screen i explained above how you should be aible to tell if there are conflicts.. and imho in your system there are conflicts like husk said sound and vid aint supposed to share a IRQ.. nor the raid controller..

anyway in the same screen you should be able to change them. in my cause change was greyed out. maybe you gotta be in save mode or something to change it.. don't realy know.. maybe husk does

[Belkin]

Just been speaking to my IT Engineer at work.

He thinks I may have a virus and I have a few site he has shown me to use.
He suggested download.com for a free to use, cost to buy trojan virus checker.
Also a company that we deal with called Symantec. They have an excellent site with virus checker and removal tool.

Then I'll delete temp internet files and cookies just to make sure.

On top of this I have ordered a Netgear DG834 ADSL modem/firewall/router. I'll get that up and running and uninstall my Zone Alarm.

I'll also be installing XP home tonight with SP1, I will wait for SP2 next version as version 1 has a few problems atm.

I have loaded the most recent drivers onto my mobo, soundcard and graphics card. I'll have a look at the IRQs tonight.

If after all this if I'm still fucked then it will be a case of re-formatting the hard drive. I'll make a boot disk as well.

Phew, I never thought I would get this involved with my PC at all, I'm used to consoles really. It's good to learn this stuff though, everyone here and on vent has been really helpful, so thx to all.

[HusK]

I had written alot of shit about IRQ's and ways to change them... but removed it as its getting to messy to explain in full, its all down to experimenting alot, which is dangerous if you don't know what the hell you are doing and how to undo it when you've changed things that disable your system completely.

Therefore I think you should only attempt to get your videocard on its own IRQ, take out all PCI cards, but leave the soundcard. Start windows and then see weither it is sharing IRQ's with your videocard.
If so, move the soundcard to a different PCI slot - OR - if you have the option to take the soundcard settings off from automatic (under hardware propertys - resources) try to change it there.
Once its alright, test the system with that burnintest I linked you to above.

After that, start putting in your PCI cards one by one, and keep testing every time, making sure you are getting no errors after putting in a certain PCI card.

The virus problems and/or spyware can offcourse be a far more obvious reason for instability, but I figured you had that covered?
We are somehow now assuming its an IRQ problem that is creating your instability, but keep in mind that its just one of the many options that could create instability.
Normaly, one never faces such a trial against instability, so your system is special in some way, the whole problem could in the end be down to a mainboard not functioning properly, to which there is no sound sollution other than to keep testing and experimenting to your death.

This is taking alot of your time, and therefore I would suggest bringing back your PC to your hardware vendor and make it VERY clear to them what you want to do with it, and what all is running instable - and that you expect them to fix this (assuming you still got garantee's to that).
Withoud garantees... The time to do this in payments could be between 60 and 180 euro's - a hefty sum.

[Belkin]

Well aside from all your excellent help boys. The virus beat me.

I ran Spyware last night that detected and removed 48 viruses, it had 6 it couldn't get rid of. I then ran the Symantec virus/trojan checker. It found a Trojan so I ran the right remover to get rid of it. It said it couldn't find the Trojan, bah.

As I type my PC is with my Engineers having it's hard drive re-formatted.

As I said before thx for all your help, I will hopefully talk to you on vent or in the forums soon.

B