More BSOD woes, problems from a year ago

[Pulse]

Oh the joys of ATI.

I am experiencing severe problems with my current video card, the Radeon 9800 SERIES (256mb). Basically, whenever I try to play any game, whether it be Counter-Strike: Source, Team Fortress Classic or even Deus Ex my computer will run the game fine for a few minutes then crash to a blue screen, giving either of the following errors:

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA

or

IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL

I have had this problem in the past and it was fixed by switching the AGP speed to x4 and disabling fast-write. I tried doing this again, yet the problem still exists!

I have updated all drivers for the card, ran countless virus scans, spyware scans and updated XP yet I am at a complete loss as to what I can do to fix this problem!

I have included the following screen shots, displaying the errors which appear when I log back onto XP after I experience a BSOD:

and here is the event that was recorded:

I also compiled a DxDiag dump that gives you all of my hardware and software specifications, this can be downloaded here. (craveuk is my other forum name on a separate forum)

Any ideas anyone? I'm at a loss once again.

 

[The Brick]

I found this by googling "IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL":

Is the BIOS set to allow the OS to choose what the IRQ's are set to? It's usually somewhere in one of the advanced areas called 'Plug and Play OS installed' the options are yes and no. Whatever that happens to be set to, try the opposite. I usually leave the BIOS doing the IRQ setting (P&P OS installed: no), but sometimes the OS needs to.

 

[Pulse]

Meh I'm mainly concerned about the PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA error as it is the most common. Now it will often crash to a blank blue screen, with the same pop-up error box appearing once I log back on.

I'm pretty sure it is the video card that is causing the trouble, as the same product number is given every time- 'Product: 768_1'. Does anyone know how I can identify the component with the product number given there?

I also discovered the following whilst searching for System Information today;

Any ideas what to make of this?

 

[Laivasse]

Just a shot in the dark, but do you use Zonealarm? I used to get these exact same errors caused by Zonealarm whenever I tried to connect to the net. Even with the firewall disabled, it didn't go away until I uninstalled the software. I do believe my problem was some kind of resource conflict however, so it wouldn't surprise me if yours is completely unrelated.

Can't suggest anything else, but for detailed info on your PC, try downloading Lavalys Everest Home Edition

 

[Pulse]

Nope, have never delved into Zonealarm. Thanks for the LE link however, I'll give it a try and see if I can get some sense out of my abomination of a computer. If anyone else has anything they can suggest, just chuck it in here as I'm pretty desperate right now.

 

[Xendance]

Just a shot in the dark, but do you use Zonealarm? I used to get these exact same errors caused by Zonealarm whenever I tried to connect to the net. Even with the firewall disabled, it didn't go away until I uninstalled the software. I do believe my problem was some kind of resource conflict however, so it wouldn't surprise me if yours is completely unrelated.

Can't suggest anything else, but for detailed info on your PC, try downloading Lavalys Everest Home Edition

That better not happen with me.

 

[Laivasse]

I think it's pretty rare, and something else was probably the root cause, but uninstalling Zonealarm fixed my problem.

@Pulse - from looking at your system information screenshot, one thing strikes me. I'm not sure if your graphics card and 'BT Voyager' thing should be sharing the same IRQ. And IRQ conflict would fit with the messages on these BSOD's.

What is the BT thing? Is it a 56k modem? If it is non-essential try taking it out of the PCI slot it's in. That might fix it.

 

[Pulse]

I think it's pretty rare, and something else was probably the root cause, but uninstalling Zonealarm fixed my problem.

@Pulse - from looking at your system information screenshot, one thing strikes me. I'm not sure if your graphics card and 'BT Voyager' thing should be sharing the same IRQ. And IRQ conflict would fit with the messages on these BSOD's.

What is the BT thing? Is it a 56k modem? If it is non-essential try taking it out of the PCI slot it's in. That might fix it.

The 'BT Voyager' is actually the wireless adapter that I use for my wireless broadband. It's a small device that is slotted into the back of my computer, and looks like this;

I'll investigate into this now that you've mentioned it but it's never given me any problems in the past. My knowledge of IRQ however is very limited, what is it exactly? And any ideas how my video card would be sharing the same IRQ as my wireless Internet adapter?

 

[Laivasse]

I'll confess to being far from an expert myself. I only know enough to know that if you're having BSOD problems like those, and if they are coinciding with multiple devices appearing on the same IRQ that it may be worth investigating. However Microsoft's own info says that IRQ sharing is not much to be concerned about:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068

Here are some more thangs I googl?'d:
http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/change-irq-settings.htm
http://www.webtechgeek.com/How-to-Resolve-IRQ-Conflict.htm

It does fill me with some doubt now that you say it's worked fine in the past. However if it were me, and if it was something I could do without much hassle, I'd pull the wireless card out of my PC for a while and play Deus Ex to see if I blue-screened (obviously you'd need to make sure that Steam's offline mode worked first).

If on the other hand it is a video card overheating issue (which appears to be the thread you pursued in the past, what with the fast writes/AGP settings) then other than clearing out any dust and improving airflow to your card, I don't really know what you can do. That card really shouldn't be overheating while playing TFC and Deus Ex anyway...

 

[Pulse]

I did as you suggested and yanked the BT Voyager adapter out and then proceeded to play Max Payne 2. Everything was going quite smoothly, until it just crashed again- no BSOD this time though, only the following error:

I included a similar steam related error as they may share some correlation, as steam would often crash in this manner at random intervals whilst I was in-game. Whilst it is better than a BSOD, it still doesn't make life any easier

When I opened up my computer again I did notice the ATI card was pretty damn hot so perhaps it is still over heating?

On the Hexus community boards (Official ATI forums or something like that) someone suggested moving the card to a different PCI slot;

It may be benificial... the motherboard allocates different IRQs and resources to different PCI slots, and resources have to be shared because there are simply not enough of them... if you try the card in a different slot, it may get allocated different resources, which wont cause a conflict with the other hardware in your system, its not a guaranteed fix but its worth looking into.

Does this sound like a plausible idea? Or should I just scrap the Radeon and buy a completely new graphics card altogether? Would purchasing a new card perhaps alleviate my problems?

 

[Laivasse]

I have heard that switching PCI slots around can resolve problems related to IRQ's, although whether or not that is your problem in the first place is something I'm not sure about.

A new card might be worthwhile since it is most probably a display problem. Get the best card that won't be choked by your processor and system.

As a last resort, I remember seeing some tech forums online where some people were able to analyse the minidump files generated after a BSOD and tell people exactly what the crash was likely to be caused by. Those might be worth checking out.