Fweddy in long serious xp related post shocka!

[old.Fweddy]

Right chaps, bit of a problem here. I've put XP on my computer (after a reformat, natch) to run some XP only software. Unfortunately its a being a bit n0rty and giving me errors and crashes every few minutes when I try and run said software. Its perfectly stable just surfing the interweb, playing music/games or watching DVDs. As soon as I start messing about in any video editing software, 3D graphics thingy or photoshop it all goes to pot though.

Either XP closes the program and says it encountered a problem and had to close or goes to a bsod saying either 'PAGE FAULT IN NON PAGED AREA', 'IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL' or nothing in particular. each one gives an error code and the odd system file but thats all.

I followed advice from MS Knowledge base/other tech forums and tried using the onboard sound instead of my soundcard and I removed all the PCI cards, but that didn't have any effect. I switched my normal graphics card for a 32mb ATI Rage card and that started errors when I went on the net/etc too. I've installed the latest drivers for everything and d/led anything that looked important off windows update.

My system:
Windows XP pro + sp1
Soltek SL-75KAV motherboard (VIA chipset)
AMD 1.4Ghz cpu
512mb generic make memory (2x 256mb sticks)
ATI Radeon 64mb ddr VIVO graphics card
Soundblaster Live! 5.1 soundcard
Internal hardware modem, no idea what make.
300W PSU
20gb hdd
60gb hdd
Sony CDRW
Creative DVD


Affected Software:
Adobe After Effects,
Adobe Photoshop,
Adobe Premiere,
Maya PLE,
Houdini Master,
Truespace 3.2
All the ones that will run under Windows 98 ran fine on that.

I reckon it's either the graphics card or the motherboard thats the problem, but want to know for sure and find out which one before I piss all my money away upgrading. I've probably given you all way too much information and asked about a really simple problem that's been covered before, but I won't apologise because I'm annoyed.

 

[Ulysses777]

It may be a RAM problem.

Try using your 256MB sticks one at a time, and/or try using different slots.

 

[old.Fweddy]

I've just tried that. No luck

 

[smurkin]

Either XP closes the program and says it encountered a problem and had to close or goes to a bsod saying either 'PAGE FAULT IN NON PAGED AREA', 'IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL' or nothing in particular. each one gives an error code and the odd system file but thats all.

Yep. Could be your ram. Could also be a driver problem. As there was no problem pre-xp, I would have bet bet on the drivers. But you seem to have covered that base already.

You could try Memtest86 to see if your RAM is faulty...easy to do and might just save you alot of effort.

 

[TedTheDog]

I got exactly that problem when I first bought an ipod.

WARNING: This all might be complete balls and have no bearing on your problem. I offer this soley on the basis that I had the same errors, but under different circumstances, and this is how i fixed them.


Various things related to firewire were at the heart my problem. Got firewire on the mobo or soundcard? Disable it if you dont need it.
Does the mobo have a highpoint raid controller on it? Make sure thats off if your not using it. If you are using it (if you have hdd's you havent told us about in other words) then find all instances of HPTPRO.SYS on your system and rename them to HPTPRO.OLD and reboot.


That, and buying a proper firewire card and not using the shit onboard firewire you get on mobo's and some soundcards fixed my BSOD's.
Its just a thought.....

 

[Ulysses777]

I've looked around on a few sites, and there's a couple of other possibilities.

Some Norton software can cause this error. If you have any running, close it and try again. [Edit] A way of checking this is: Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer. On the left pane of Event Viewer, click on System and look for errors from programs at around the exact time you got the BSOD/error message.

Or:

One (or both) of your HDD's is knackered.

What was the reason for the reformat?

 

[old.Fweddy]

I have no Norton software running, nor do I have any firewire ports. I reformatted just to put XP on, as opposed to upgrading. I've heard nasty things about upgrading from 98 to XP.

In Event Viewer there are groups of 4 errors for every crash. The source for them is listed as 'acpi'. Does this mean anything?

 

[PR.]

How olds the PC?

Try updating your bios!

 

[xane]

Originally posted by old.Fweddy
In Event Viewer there are groups of 4 errors for every crash. The source for them is listed as 'acpi'. Does this mean anything?

ACPI is the power management, how about disabling that in the BIOS ?

 

[Ulysses777]

Have you tried the latest Via 4-in-1's?

 

[kameleon]

the acpi error is telling you that there is a problem with devices sharing an irq, probably with the agp slot. unistall all your cards and install them again one at a time, avoiding the use of the shared PCI slot on your board. Make sure that the onboard modem is turned off in bios.

 

[old.Fweddy]

I disabled the ACPI thingy in the BIOS. That sort of solved the problem. XP wouldn't crash, but it wouldn't boot either. I enabled it again and put the latest 4-in1s on and now windows can't load the 'VIA CPU to AGP Controller'

I'll try and fix this then I'll have a go at re-installing all the cards. No problems with the onboard modem though; there isn't one.

 

[Testin da Cable]

wasn't it so that if you installed doze with acpi on in the BIOS then you'd have to reinstall it if you turned ithe function off?
I seem to remember something like that :/

 

[PR.]

I was told you could change it in Device Manager under Computer change it from ACPI Computer to Standard PC or something else

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Originally posted by PR.
I was told you could change it in Device Manager under Computer change it from ACPI Computer to Standard PC or something else

That sorta worked on 2K, but it left a really messy system so it wasn't recomended. Dunno how it works on XP.

 

[old.Fweddy]

Slight troubles with gettin the VIA 4-in1s to work. XP locks up when its loading. I tried to boot into safe mode and it locks up while trying to load the 'VIA CPU to AGP Controller'. I rebooted and got a message saying 'ntoskrnl.exe' is missing or corrupt. It then restarted and allowed me to boot up in VGA mode. When I got to the desktop it told me it had installed the 'VIA CPU to AGP Controller' properly and needed to reboot. I let it (foolishly). I have now found I can only get XP to load fully by reseting it before it crashes then booting into VGA mode, which works every one in five or so times.

Is there any possible way to fix this? It looks to me like reformating and disabling ACPI is an attractive option now :/

 

[~Lazarus~]

Fweddy.

This probably wont help at all, but Im a helping sort.

My dad experienced this error :

'IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL"

on his old machine. It was running ?Win2k at the time, but might be a common problem.

His issue was caused by his onboard gfx card being, well, fuxored.

Uninstalled onboard card and installed new PCI gfx - working fine now.

 

[old.Fweddy]

Problem solved

My creative outbursts are now limited only by my imagination and my years old 4mb PCI graphics card :/