[spinityeah]

Hey guys,

Complete newbie! I worked with PCs during the Windows 95 era so I play games, listen to music, and generally muck about on my PC. I'm having a bit of an issue on two accounts really.

I recently bought 4Gb of Memory to make the PC run that little bit faster. My friend also recommended an upgrade to my video card so I went for a standard NVidea GeForce 9500 GT. All seemed to be going well but I then kept getting the old BSOD. Originally I though this was the memory as a lot on info on the net states the 32bit version of Vista can't handle it. I don't know if this is 100% correct as I have another Vista PC with 3Gb and it's fine. In any case I removed 2Gb for the timebeing but kept getting the BSOD. I then ran driver verifier and this put my PC in a constant BSOD death loop. I got a message stating the IRQ_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL or some other pants!! After several reinstalls and then disabling of my NVidea card the system seems to work. I then reactivated my NVidea card and found seveal conflicting IRQ settings in my device manager, primarilly I noted that my BSOD did keep happening when I was using my external USB hard drive to listen to music and noted the following:

PCI 17 High definition audio controler
PCI 17 Standard openHCD USB Host Controller

The NVidea card also shares an IRQ with two of these host controllers which is a bit concerning. I understand I should be able to amend these settings in the Bios but I have to say I've messed around in there and the settings do not change. I don't think I can change th IRQ of the audio device as it's onboard and can't be moved, plus the NVidea card in PCIx and I can't change it's port.

PLEASE HELP ME I HATE THE BSOD!!! I need to know if i can solve this BSOD issue as I think it's caused by this sharing IRQ thing. I have disables 3/4 of these host controllers to prevent the BSOD and that's working but I don't like being without 3/4 of my ports!!! It would also be nice to hear that I can use my 4Gb of memory (2Gb sticks x 2)

If you need any info lemme know

Cheers peepz

[Rollin' Rog]

About the only way you can change the IRQ for an installed card is to change the slot.

Has the onboard graphics chip been disabled in the BIOS?

I can run a debugging utility on the dump files if you do this:

1 > create a new folder on the desktop and call it "dumpcheck" or whatever you like
2 > navigate to c:\windows\minidump and copy the last few minidump files to that folder. *this assumes 'c' is your boot drive, if it is not, subsitute accordingly
3 > close the folder and right click on it and select Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder.
4 > use the "manage attachments" in the "advanced" reply window to upload that zip file here as an attachment.

This might point us to a non Microsoft driver causing the error, if one exists for it.

[spinityeah]

hey Rollin'

I'm going to get those minidump files tonight for you. The PC is causing me a lot of conern at the moment as I recently had to do a full reinstall last night due to some wierd issue with WMP. WIth regards to the Graphics card(s); the only time i see them both show is when i am using the onboard card for video. I then go into the Bios and switch the settings for Video to the PCIx NVidea card. When i check system settings the onboard card doesn't show so i presume it's deactivated? I really swear the issue is with a confilict of some sort, but system info states there are none. I note that i mainly get the BSOD while listening to music on my external USB HD (and have noted that one of my USB Host controllers does share an IRQ with my onboard audio card) Bloody wierd!!!!

Windows also points towards McAfee as a possible issue on this? I downloaded it from BT Yahoo FOC so am concerned that they would be providing a package that screws your PC?

One more issue has also reared it's ugly head and this was with WMP not monitoring folders. As I said I have my music etc on an external drive and all of a sudden it WMP would not monitor any folders. This happened when i screwed about reactivating the USB host controllers that I had originally deactivated due to the IRQ conflict issue. It's getting too wierd for me

I will get the dump files soon but if you have any input just now then that would be good

[rainforest123]

FWIW, my Vista Ultimate 32 bit can handle 4 x 1 GB each.

If your PC will boot with only 1 stick of ram, remove all but 1 stick. Be sure to have thaqt stick in the proper ram slot. Check your motherboard manual.

Run Vista's mem diag from the Vista DVD or the Advanced options menu; tap F8 once a second during boot.

Yes, do what RR advises.

Try system restore for your USB host controllers issue. In device manager, USB host controllers et al need to uninstalled in a specific order.


Also: http://www.5starsupport.com/faq/usb-faq.htm

RF123