I keep getting a ton of those cursed IRQL_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSoDs recently on my new computer. I haven’t installed any new drivers, until this all started happening. It seems to be a Patch 2.3 thing. Even Flashing the BIOS didn’t do anything. I’ve got an nVidia 8600GT, ASUS motherboard with an nVidia NIC. So many variables involved.
I’ve messed with the tips about virtual memory, DEP, and physical memory dumps (I finally hard powered off after the counter hit 90). I found a thread at home about Blizzard addressing the issue with the lame tips above, but then I found this thread on the forums at school tonght:
How I did it for anyone that wants to know. I’m WinXP, go to start, Control Panel, Performance Maintenance (if you’re using category view) (System for Classic View) then Devise Manager, open up Display Adapters, click on your listed Nvidia card, and Rollback the Driver.
Have you had this problem? How did you fix it?
Yep. The good news, the IRQL_NOT_LESS_BLAH error is very common, and what I am about to tell you could be far from the truth (or completely wrong lol). And now for the bad news 🙂 The only way I found to fix it was to zero level format the drive, and re-install everything. There was a corrupted driver sitting on my drive, and when I would do a simple reformat, it would leave that driver on the drive.
Thanks, Aeig! I think…. DANG that sux.
So, you’re talking about that crazy-wicked format with the switches at the end of the command, right?
Here’s the thing, though. This was a new, out of the box, hard drive, Dell OEM Windows XP disc, and everything that WoW uses is located on the new hard drive.
Same answer?
I used to get IRQL_LESS_OR_ EQUAL all the time on my computer while playing WoW. It was typically completely random, but always happened when I triggered an event such as mounting up or even jumping.
From my experience, this error relates to a memory issue. Typically in Windows you’ll see two types of BSOD’s for memory errors: one is IRQL_LESS_OR_ EQUAL, the other is MEMORY_ MANAGEMENT. The IRQL_LESS_OR_ EQUAL usually results from applications crashing the system and MEMORY_ MANAGEMENT usually from Windows itself allocating something wrong.
My advice would be to grab the
memtest86+ ISO.Pop that onto a CD or DVD and boot into it and let it run for at least 3 cycles. There’s 9 or 10 tests each cycle.
I discovered that it was erroring in
memtest86+as well. Ultimately I found out that my memory timings and voltage settings in BIOS were slightly off: the voltage was too low and the memory timings were set wrong.You may want to check this out and compare the BIOS settings (provided your BIOS allows you to change memory voltage and timings, most ASUS boards do) with the manufacturer’s rated/recommended voltage and timings.
Prepare to use the clear CMOS feature of the motherboard, though! It sometimes takes a few tries to get it right: when it doesn’t work sometimes the computer won’t even get past the BIOS POST screen, requiring you to clear the CMOS and try again.
– Adam
Thanks for the tech support.
For some reason the comment doesn’t appear with your site recommendation without making it code. Cool. I’m too lazy to look up the ASCII for the plus sign.