Could this be the motherboard?

[Markoman01027]

Hey everybody,

I tried a lot of things to solve this ongoing problem. Although this problem hasn't happened in a few months, last night it came up again. I would occationally get a blue screen saying " IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL" and with a system file referenced to, although I do not quite remember the file name, although it had like nvmini.sys I think with it.

The steps that I have taken to try solving this problem, was normal troubleshooting techniques. Pull out the NIC, boot up, still get it, and so on. I have gottin this error with both Windows 98SE & XP, and I am getting it with Windows 2000.

I have a lot of the services disabled with 2K and I barely have any programs running in the background, only the ones that really need to be running so 2K will boot up fine.

I have tried different versions of the video card drivers, and I have not yet come to a solution. I spoke to my motherboard manufacterer, and he said to try flashing your BIOS. But I am not sure if this will work.

I have talked to HAL9000 about this, and he said that it is my chipset problem. I'm starting to think he is right, because I have been on viaarena.com lately and I have seen this error being posted a lot on the VIA ARENA forums.

I have even installed the VIA 4 in 1 Drivers for Windows 2000.

Here is what I am running...

MIA VIA® Apollo KT333 Model # KT3V MS-6712
512MB of DDR RAM(PC2100, Crucial, recently a stick has been replaced and another stick has been added to make total of 512MB)
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
GF4 MX420
Netgear FA311
IBM Deskstar 80GB 2MB CACHE ATA100 HD
LITE ON 48X24X48 CD-RW
3.5" Floopy Drive
Windows 2000 Professional w/ Service Pack 3
DX 9

I think it is time for a motherboard upgrade

Thanks guys!

[bonzai]

First, make sure it isn't an IRQ error. That error USUALLY means two cards are using the same IRQ. Reboot your computer with only the bare essentials, meaning removing more than the NIC. Remove extra unecessary cards such as the Sound Blaster, Netgear, and any other extra cards that you may have in there.

[morriswindgate]

Soundblasters are known to cause problems like this. Also NIC cards can do this. Move the Sound blaster to the next to lowest slot and pull the netgear card and see if the problem happens.
If moving the Sound blaster does away with this, uninstall all the software for the soundblaster including the drivers and then re-install just the drivers. The garbage that creative tries to install on your computer can cause all sorts of funny problems. And you do not need anything other than the drivers.

[reboot]

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR EQUAL errors are chipset related. Usually a combination of BIOS update and chipset driver will cure it.
Not necessarily the newest 4-in-1's, but try 3 or 4 different versions. Particulariy succeptible are Asus motherboards with the VIA chipset.

[Markoman01027]

I will pull out the sound card and see if it continues. The problem is, the error does not come all the time. The last time I saw this error was like 2 months ago, and it happened last night. So I am not sure when it is going to happen again. The Network Card & The Sound Card are both using IRQ 17.

Will I have to reinstall the drivers for the Sound Card if I move it to another slot?

[glc]

If it's "nvmini" or "nv" anything, that's pointing square at an issue with Nvidia.........

[Markoman01027]

I haven't switched the NIC to another PCI slot yet. Although, I have updated the NIC drivers, and going to update the video card drivers. Will post back if I get the error again and if it relates to that Nvmini file.

[bonzai]

-- "The Network Card & The Sound Card are both using IRQ 17."

Dude, you have already found your problem, which confirms what I have said above.

[Nuclear Krusader]

What's the deal with APIC? Wasn't it s'posed to prevent all these IRQ related problems?

[crjdriver]

Originally posted by bonzai -- "The Network Card & The Sound Card are both using IRQ 17." Dude, you have already found your problem, which confirms what I have said above.

Win2k is made to share irqs. It is a function of ACPI; currently this computer is sharing 5 devices on irq 11 with absolutely no problem whatsoever. Win2k [and xp] make much better use of irq resources than win9x ever did.
In my experience the error he is getting often results from poor quality or mismatched ram.

[GaryRouth]

Matt - any luck yet? I like reboot's idea about a motherboard Bios update. You can always try different versions of the Detonators, too. And the 4n1s.

Did you test the memory yet? Crazy memory makes troubleshooting even crazier.
. . . Gary

[Markoman01027]

I have updated the 4n1's and tried the latest detonator drivers. I will do a BIOS update sometime next week.

So far, I have not yet seen the blue screen occur. But keep in mind, I havent seen one for about 2 months and it came around like last week and hasnt happened yet.

[Blakhart]

If you see such things as devices sharing irq17, they aren't. APIC does not share irq's. When you see the devices on the same irq, the number is merely a placeholder to give you some info.
The error you are speaking of happens on many systems that run nvid cards. I have seen it often on via products. If you see something in the blue screen that mentions nv, just as glc said, that points to an nvidia part/driver at fault. The M$ os's are pretty good at pointing the finger at who killed them. In this case, nvid?