[DragonSpawn]

I run Windows XP home edition. The issue is more whenever I start a game, the small loading screen appears. And at the 1-1.5 second transition phase where the game should go fullscreen the PC BSOD's and crashes.

The error I got was:

IRQL_not_less_or_equal

Check new hardware/software installation

Windows updates

Persist uninstall all new hardware/software

Deactivate BIOs options caching/shading

***stop: 0x0000000A (0x00000016, 0x0000001C, 0x00000000, 0x805021DE)

Now I assume it is a driver issue. More specifically I had a cheap USB headset, it is possible that it interferes with the VC drivers & onboard mobo audio drivers. I uninstalled the cheap USB headset and hoped the uninstall got rid of all that headsets audio drivers. Can't be sure though.

I got it to work for a day though oddly enough... after disabling the realtek drivers, rebooting the pc, then enabling the realtek drivers again. All games booted fine repeatedly. However the next day it did the crashing again. So I tried the disabling/enabling again but it continued crashing.

Another oddity is I can start all games in windowed mode. It's just that when they go fullscreen that the crashes happen. Same on the individual chance that it doesn't crash, maybe 1/10 or 1/15 tries, it crashes if I alt-tab.


My specs are:

Asus 8800GTX 768mb
2x 1gig G.E.I.L nonstandard RAM
E8300 duo core 2.83ghz

and my PSU is a 600watt Tagan.


So my 2nd and dreaded thought is. Could it be that 600watt is not enough for the above configuration? I would assume it is, since the 8800GTX takes up 300watt at absolute maximum...

[Dalo Harkin]

600 Watt is more than enough for that - not sure from memory on the 8800GTX but are both the 6 pin PCI-E connectors installed or is there just 1?
I would check that you have removed all the old NVIDIA drivers - go to their website they have an application on there that you can run and will remove all the old instances of the drivers.
do you have the latest Direct X version?

come back and let us know what you get when you have tried the above

[DragonSpawn]

Latest directx9.0c is installed.

Could you perhaps explain how I can check that with the pins? Also is it plausible that only one pin installed would only give me issues in that 1-2sec timeframe of going fullscreen? Since I can play for hours at max settings once I make it past that annoying crucial stage.

I'll look for that NVIDIA program. On a sidenote, will it erase my current drivers (newest ASUS 8800GTX ones from the ASUS website), just so I know whether to have them ready on my desktop?


EDIT: After 15min of hard searching I could not find this NVIDIA program

[Dalo Harkin]

Yes it will erase them - DO NOT get drivers for a graphics card from anywhere other than NVIDIA or ATI - they are much better and stable than the ones that ASUS provide.
If you ope the side of the case and look at the Graphics card there should be 1 or 2 cables going into the card.

DRIVER CLEANER HERE Download dcprosetup_15.zip

[DragonSpawn]

I think I may have found my issue. It's an IRQ conflict.

My soundcard and videocard are using the same IRQ port. 16. And the manual setting is greyed out:









What other kind of solution can there be to put either the VC or the soundcard onto a different IRQ slot?

[Goku]

Hello and Welcome to Free PC Help Dragon.

I believe that the Asus drivers are causing a conflict as they are known to cause such issues. Please uninstall them, reboot your computer and see if the problem is solved or not. Let us know how it goes. Good Luck.

-- Goku

[DragonSpawn]

Originally Posted by Goku

Hello and Welcome to Free PC Help Dragon.

I believe that the Asus drivers are causing a conflict as they are known to cause such issues. Please uninstall them, reboot your computer and see if the problem is solved or not. Let us know how it goes. Good Luck.

-- Goku

I doubt it. Originally I had the NVIDIA drivers, I only switched to the ASUS because of the constant crashes. But now I found out like shown above there is an IRQ conflict. The audio and videocard use the same IRQ slot. How does installing new drivers help change the IRQ slot of one of them?

[Goku]

What I mean to say is that because you installed the Asus drivers, they seem to be conflicting with the Nvidia drivers. Please uninstall them as you will not be needing them and reinstall the Nvidia drivers. The message you receive is also caused due to a driver conflict. If the above does not resolve your problem, we will consider hardware conflicts. Please try it and let us know how it goes. Good Luck.

-- Goku

[DragonSpawn]

Ok I uninstalled the ASUS drivers and put in the NVIDIA. And the same phenomenom as last time happened:


1) Last time I uninstalled the NVIDIA and put on the ASUS, the result was directly after the prompt restart I could play super, and the games always started perfectly. I tested it by starting and exiting the games a good half dozen times.

2) Then I go to sleep. Next day when I turn the PC on again, the games no longer launch.

3) Today as you said I uninstalled the ASUS drivers and installed the NVIDIA drivers. Directly after the prompt reboot, I could also launch all the games again.

However then for test I shut the PC off. Turned it back on. Attempted to launch a game and got BSOD'd again the second the game tried to go fullscreen.


------------------------------------------------------------------------


I also put system restore points at both times the games launched fine. As a test I decided to system restore to the first time it worked. When I do the system restore.........it also works fine again. At least until I reboot, then again I return to the won't launch to fullscreen issue.


Also I tried to manually change the IRQ slot of the Video Card, but apparently it's grayed out under the device manager options. I assume the issue is the onboard sound card and the video card going at eachother since they share a port whenever a game tries to start?


------------------------------------------------------------------------


Also I downloaded that driver cleaner. I'll uninstall the new NVIDIA drivers yet again, run that program and then I suppose slap the NVIDIA drivers back on?

[Dalo Harkin]

Use the driver cleaner and install the latest NVIDIA driver -
I am speaking from experience with ASUS GPU drivers - they are a nightmare.
I have no idea why you are getting that conflict - unless the GPU has an HDMI cable attached as that is an AUDIO and VIDEO stream.
try the driver cleaner and also goto C:/ NVIDIA and manually remove all the contents - I am guessing there are 3 or 4 old ones in there and they are conflicting with one another.

[DragonSpawn]

One question. Before I use the drive cleaner. Do I:

1) Install the driver cleaner. Uninstall the NVIDIA Drivers. Run the driver cleaner. Install the NVIDIA drivers off of the desktop setup .exe again.


2) Install the driver cleaner. Run the driver cleaner. Install the NVIDIA drivers off of the desktop setup .exe again.

???

[Dalo Harkin]

uninstall ALL old version of drivers - including the manual C:/ NVIDIA ones and then install driver cleaner, run driver cleaner - reboot install the latest NVIDIA driver et voila (fingers crossed)

[DragonSpawn]

Sorry to be a real pain. The use of the word "old" confuses me a bit. Does this mean I should do the usual. Go into device manager and remove the driver. Then it reboots, there are no drivers running, everything looks huge and messed up on the screen since it runs on the windows drivers. And then with not a single NVIDIA driver running I run the scan? Or simply I get rid of all folders of drivers except the newest 1.7519?

I had some bad experiences with drivers, I am always overcautious with them before I rush headlong into something involving them. :/

[Goku]

Please navigate to C:/Windows/Minidump and post some of the recent files as zip attachments. They may help in debugging the cause of your problem.

-- Goku

[DragonSpawn]

I rar'd the minidump infos. Here is the rapidshare of them:


RapidShare: Easy Filehosting






Also I'll do that driver clean thingie once someone answers my above question if I have to uninstall all stuff for it's use. Also the fact that I sat 7 hours today on the PC already attempting many things to try and fix it, I'm spent. So expect the results tomorrow :/


PS: I did show the picture of the sound and video card sharing the same IRQ slot, are you sure that isn't the issue? Or should in theory both be able to work on the same slot?

PSS: Remember a few days ago, the day before the issues started. I installed a lower quality USB headset which also installed it's on drivers onto the machine. I then out of ignorance uninstalled the realtek audio drivers. Got no sound. Downloaded and reinstalled the realtek audio, uninstalled the headset drivers.

Could that amateur slobbob job have brought about a driver imbalance that is causing the issue? Since mayhaps part of the USB headsets audio drivers is still on the machine somewhere, or the slop on/off/on of the audio drivers disturbed the precarious balance needed since the video/audio drivers share the same IRQ slot?

That is just some random thoughts of mine. Don't know if they help or not. I hope the minidumps tell you the issue.

[Goku]

Dragon, you can log off whenever you want. Just login and check your results whenever you want to. You don't need to stay awake and ruin your sleep due to us.

I am sorry but I will not be able to debug the Minidumps for you as I don't have the adequate utility and have a slow connection. I am afraid you will have to do it yourself.

How to read the small memory dump files that Windows creates for debugging

Sorry that I couldn't help you more. I will try to search more on the driver conflicts issue and post back if I have any updates. Dalo will take you from here and I am sure he will guide you through a solution. Hope you get it fixed soon.

-- Goku

It would be better to post the minidumps as a txt file Dragon if that is possible as not all of our team may have the capabilities to unzip rar files.

[DragonSpawn]

How do I post them as .txt files? Also by adequate utility you mean the .rar, want me to reupload it as a .zip?


Also can I have an answer on the "how to" in regards to the driver cleaner, before it gets burried in the other side projects?



Some pictures I hope might help:

[DragonSpawn]

I ran a small but interesting test. I took another game.

My screen resolution is at 1280x800. So I went into the games settings and put in the command for it to start at resolution 1280x800 in windowed mode.

The result was the game starting up like this:





I then launched the game again but with altered settings. This time I let it launch normal fullscreen, the only theoreticaly difference is 1cm less space to convert to graphics on the bottom otherwise the launches seem almost identical in terms of graphic output and power to bring about the images. HOWEVER with the fullscreen launch it crashed and BSOD'd immediately the second the game tried to launch.....

My PC seems to not like fullscreen applications no matter how often I installed and uninstalled new drivers.

[Dalo Harkin]

Dragon - sorry I was away - I do not do most nights as I have kids
Ok you need to remove the current and old drivers that you have on the system - these are located in the C drive. They are stored in C:/NVIDIA
There will be some numbers 168.00 etc if there are more than 1 thats part of the cause-
you need to delete all of them and when that's done run the driver cleaner program that will clear all of the other remnants that are hidden that you cannot remove - when thats all done restart the PC and when it reboots install the newest NVIDIA driver and see whats what.
I will in the mean time see if your card requires 2 PCI 6 pin cables or just the one.