My computer has been up to no good lately and then last night something happened which i have never seen before?

I was playing Disciples 2 then the game appeared to crash, all the units vanished from the map but the terrain was still visible and the game was frozen. But the most unusual thing - the mouse and keyboard lost power?? And yet the computer was still running (the humming of cooling fans at least).

I restarted and shortly after restarting i got a blue screen it says "IRQL not less or equal than".... i have seen this same blue screen a number of times before.

I have had trouble in the past as well, but i simply shift the RAM around, pull out and replug cords, pull out and re-install vidio card, then it runs very good for several weeks before starting the same mischief again.

I have suspected the Video card because it seems quite loose in the slot, and whenever i have played around with it, the computer suddenly runs very good (for a time).

I have also suspected the HDD for far longer than the mischief started, because it never let me defrag it -if i tried, the defrag process would run but never complete, i even let it run for 2 whole days when i went away for the weekend. came back and defrag was still going. It is a shame Windows in its infinite wisdom no longer provide the defrag progress bar they used to, because that would be quite useful here!



Here is my system in detail:

Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6000) (6000.vista_gdr.100218-0019)

Motherboard: Gigabyte P35-DS3L

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz

Memory: 4094MB RAM DDR3

DirectX Version: DirectX 10

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

Display Memory: 2798 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1007 MB
Shared Memory: 1791 MB
Current Mode: 800 x 600 (32 bit) (75Hz)

Any suggestions/comments? Especially if anyone knows what that Blue screen error refers too?

Have you checked the cpu and gpu temps?if nothing is wrong with them(try using orthos or prime and stress it and furmark for the gpu)
if not try memtest then. After that if everything is working fine maybe is the psu...

I'm guessing a driver issue. Especially check drivers associated with USB devices as your mouse is losing power. A faulty device driver could be causing a conflict and fubaring Windows. Check Windows update history and see if it changed any of them.

I'd do a thorough cleaning dumping all your cache folders (avoid Steam's because they gaurd you out of you inventory afterwards - Search Vavle FAQs for the new proper way to clean Steam) and toss out any folders from old software you don't need.

Run dump caches also directly from your browsers and run CCleaner for both junk files and regsity.

Then go to device manage and delete your keyboard and mouse drivers and do a reboot to let allow Vista to autoupdate those drivers back in properly. (make sure auto update is on first)

And as the second poster suggested you might be resting your laptop on a cushion or pillow that could be blocking vents causing overheating.

Yea i have considered temperature - i switched CPU temp monitoring (80c) on in the bios just recently, its default setting seems to be off.

Both the mouse and keyboard are USB and they are switched on in Bios. The computer is five years old now and i have never before seen the mouse and keyboard loose power, it is most intriguing, but ever since day 1 the HDD has not accepted a defrag.

Oh yea, its a desktop PC not a laptop.

One other thing that could be relevant.... the position of the computer is such that my chair frequently bumps it. I never had these problems before my wife put me in the 'tiny' corner with no space.

I'm less worried about the defrag thing. I've had that problem before. Modern computers have so many processes running, and so much more size, I'm surprised they ever work. But if you are worried about it, I'd do a ChkDsk or HDD scan rather than a defrag. If you worry about the HDD, it would be a bad sector issue.

I did a quick search for that error of yours and the consensus seems to be that it is driver related, that some driver is faulty and accessing an invalid memory location.

Thanks for all the advice,

is that really a good driver update program? I have never had very good experiences with such programs in the past and just end up seriously regretting installing them. The words bogus, trojan, adware, dead end come to mind quite allot here? oh and the words, fake, buldust, mirrage, and best of all... saboteur!

Seconding the driver issue. I had a similar problem where whenever I would update the nVidia drivers, the program wouldn't uninstall the old drivers first and this caused major conflicts.

I would suggest creating a Restore Point to backup your current system settings. Next, download the latest drivers from nVidia for your video card model. Now you'll want to do a complete uninstall of your old nVidia drivers. This may make your display look a bit different after a restart. Now you can install new nVidia drivers you downloaded. That might fix your BSOD issue. Hope this helps!

Yea, i did have a bit of trouble updating my vidio drivers a couple of months ago. I wanted to see if they had developed Direct x 11 support for my graphics card but then i heard direct x 11 was shit so i never tried installing it anyway.

DX11 is miles away better than DX10, just in terms of graphical features added to games, but imho would be too taxing for your 8800 anyway.

Whatever you do, do not, I repeat DO NOT uninstall the chipset drivers and reboot. You will get an endlessly looping Windows Welcome screen (at least in 7, not 100% about Vista)

Besides, I don't think it's chipset related. Personally, I think you should take HereForTheBeer's advice. He wouldn't steer you wrong, he's a good guy. It's very tough to find driver update programs, but I'll take the heat for it if his download link doesn't pan out.

I had an IRQ conflict when I tried installing a discrete sound card a few months back. The pc started blue screening, randomly hard locking, and eventually wouldn't even power up past posting the BIOS. I'm suspicious of the new graphics driver you installed for your 8800. If anything, you should be using a legacy driver or something around ~286 or ~291, though the driver might end up being older for Vista.

Also, I STRONGLY recommend doing a Chkdsk /r and going out for a few hours while your hard drive is verified.

The only other thing I can think of is one of your mem sticks is going bad, or the mobo is starting to kill itself. The mobo thing usually happens with Foxconn and other brands of similar "value" so I'd be surprised if it were that, but you can pop open your pc and check to see if any of the transistors on the mobo are bulging or leaking. If that IS what it is, you'll also notice a weird smell from time to time, almost like over roasted hot dogs.


Just my two cents, good luck and keep us posted!
~Leucius

Oh,, that reminded me! a while back the on board sound died after i heard sparking sounds and smoke! So i threw a PCI sound card in it and disabled the on board sound in Bios. Seemed to work just fine after that but possibly the defective on board sound card drivers are still floating around causing trouble?

Wait...The motherboard is affected?! Then, the real cause of the problem it's the defective hardware. If the MB gets fragged, usually the damage extends in time. So, probably, the universe telling you to do an upgrade.

And dammit, Gigabyte P35... That series had tons of troubles. RAM slots that would degrade in time, sound/network chipsets that would die without warning. I know because i owned two of them ( ended up with an S3 revision 2 that actually works even today ).

Honestly, m8, I'd pinch a few pennies together and consider swapping out the mobo. As Wolfsrain says, when one thing goes bad it usually rolls downhill.

I don't really know how on board sound works but usually when an electrical item gets fried, current no longer flows through it, hence the frying part, so i don't think it is likely to be affecting voltages, which is the only way it could spread the damage?