How to isolate a reoccuring "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL" BSOD

[gizbug]

Any ideas? Vista sends info to microsoft after the BSOD / Reboot, yet to see any response. Trying to narrow it down.

Vista 64 Home Premium
ASUS P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe (0704 Bios)
4 gig Corsair Ram
Creative X-FI (Creative beta drivers)
ForceWare Release 158

 

[gizbug]

*** ***
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*** Your debugger is not using the correct symbols ***
*** ***
*** In order for this command to work properly, your symbol path ***
*** must point to .pdb files that have full type information. ***
*** ***
*** Certain .pdb files (such as the public OS symbols) do not ***
*** contain the required information. Contact the group that ***
*** provided you with these symbols if you need this command to ***
*** work. ***
*** ***
*** Type referenced: nt!_KPRCB ***
*** ***
*************************************************************************
Probably caused by : Pool_Corruption ( nt!ExFreePool+30ca )


That is what was at the bottom of the memory.dmp file

 

[Smilin]

Pool corruption typically means you have a misbehaving driver clobbering the memory of something else in kernel mode.

The memory dumps from these are often useless.

What you do is flip on special pool tagging which adds a 2nd page table entry for each allocation that is marked no-access. It also can write a pattern into allocated pages.

The idea is if something tries to touch the no-access page it will immediately bugcheck the box and indicate whodunnit.

188831 How to use the special pool feature to isolate pool damage
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;188831

 

[NogginBoink]

An IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL is probably not memory corruption. It's probably a flat-out driver bug and the driver at the top of the stack is probably the culprit.

Gizbug, if you could fix your symbols you'd probably get the answer.

Otherwise, what changes did you make to the system before the problem started?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
An IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL is probably not memory corruption. It's probably a flat-out driver bug and the driver at the top of the stack is probably the culprit.

Gizbug, if you could fix your symbols you'd probably get the answer.

Otherwise, what changes did you make to the system before the problem started?

Actually, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL is extremely common if your memory is unstable. Although a misbehaving driver is the other likely suspect.

Other than CPU/RAM instability or a bad kernel-mode driver, there is little that can cause this sort of failure.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
An IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL is probably not memory corruption. It's probably a flat-out driver bug and the driver at the top of the stack is probably the culprit.

Gizbug, if you could fix your symbols you'd probably get the answer.

Otherwise, what changes did you make to the system before the problem started?

Correct, In irql not less than is typically a driver bug. However the fact that there is pool corruption means that the driver at the top of the stack may be a victim, not the culprit. You can certainly try updating whatever driver was indicated but it's a shot in the dark.

Flip on pool tagging and see if the next bugcheck tells you what's up.

 

[XMan]

Pull your soundcard and see if it goes away. I had all kinds of problems with my Creative card in Vista. Got rid of it and no problems. I think their drivers are still hosed.

 

[gizbug]

Ill try taking the xfi out.

I booted into vista 64, opened up itunes, was syncing a pod cast, and bam.....BSOD IRQL_Not_less_or_equal.
Stop: 0x0000000A

Annoying. I have brand new ram, crucial xms2. 4 1gig sticks, ran memtest and it all tested out well. Manual timing and volts is set in the bios of my ASUS P5N32 sli se deluxe.

Earlier I played World of Warcraft for 3 hours, and no BSOD. Very odd.

 

[gizbug]

bump

 

[pylonman]

If this is a hardware problem, it can be a little more complex than just bad memory. A faulty motherboard and/or power supply can cause the memory to act up. Try checking the capacitors on both of those devices, the PSU and mobo. The tops should be flat, not dome-shaped, and look for brownish or rust colored material on or in the area of the capacitor. BTW is this a used PSU or a brand new one? If it is new you may void the warranty by opening it.

Gizbug, I say all this from experience, about a year ago I had bad caps on BOTH my PSU and mobo. Almost every BSOD was memory related: page fault in non-paged area, your IRQL BSOD, and some others. Every time I got a BSOD it would reference a different file / driver. I too would occasionally test my memory with memtest, most of the time it checked out perfectly fine. The funny thing that caught my attention, you just mentioned you played WoW earlier for 3 hours with no problems. I could go a month with no problems at all, and then one day or maybe a whole week, I would get BSODs so often my computer was useless.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I went through this not so long ago and the errors changed but the problem was my ram. Run memtest and see if your sticks are good. If not they will cause strange behavior in vista and the error will change depending on what your are doing when a call is made in memory especially to a bad block.