Its been a recurring problem for about six months now, but never so bad that I actually got around to fixing it… for good. I did do a full system restore, but that didn’t seem to fix it. Anyways,
its the infamous “IRQL not less than or equal” BSOD, and it seems every forum I read on the topic has different suggestions on how to fix it. However, this error occurs randomly with use. Sometimes popping up while the PC is idle, othertimes while I’m surfing the web, or while playing games. Now, here’s the kicker. After getting this error its then immediately impossible to successfully reboot the PC to Windows. It will either freeze up while trying to load, say that there was a disk read error, or say that it could not load up Windows Vista. However, if I give it time, come later, it will then load. However, if I don’t give it a lot of time, the BSOD returns much sooner than if I had just left the PC there. So, I’m thinking overheating, though that wasnot a problem when I got the PC.
However, the power box feels very hot to the touch. Shoud it? Or, should I be looking elsewhere?
Any advice would be most welcome.
Specs:
520W Corsair
nVidia 650i Core 2 Quad
Intel Core 2 Duo E6859 3.00GHz, overclocked
4GB DDR2 at 800MHz XMS2
500 GB Western Digital
8800GT 512 MB (by eVGA)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy SE
Windows Vista 64-bit
The easiest thing to try is open up the side of the case and point a big fan at the internals. Or take your overclock off temporarily. Not sure if you are comfortable doing these things, but maybe the custom PC builder included some simple instructions for you.
Techinically I’m still under warranty which includes free tech support, but I have work when they’re hours are and am hoping to fix it with out having to send it back (I’m stuck paying for shipping). I did open up the case last night (no fan), and it seemed much more stable, but like I’ve said, failings with this thing seem to be random.
