IRQL less than or equal to zero

[IcePack]

A friend asked me to put Flightsim 2004 on my computer.
However every time it would crash the computer to blue screen with the above message. I uninstalled it and restored the computer to its state prior to the install. However, whilst all normal programs run fine any graphic intensive game eg crimson skies now brings up the same fault. I have tried everything I know latest drivers re-installed etc etc but to no avail,
Anybody had this one or any ideas? Quite a lot on internet on it but no real fix. Microsoft just say it is the graphics driver. Well it was working fine before so what changed?
Anyway P4 3.06 MHZ MSI Motherboard MSI Gforce FX 5900
XP Pro
Please help

[SoftTop]

are you able to monitor the mobo and processor temperature?

It may be that the graphic intensive operation is cooking your processor and it's shutting down.

If it is getting hot (anything over 80°C is a really BAD place to be - 65 ° to 70° seems about average) it is probably time to take off the covers and vacuum out the dust and fluff collected around the various fans and heatsinks, especially the CPU.

You might also be amazed at the amount of fluff and junk that collects between your floppy/CD/DVD drives if you slide them out a little bit. That's one of the ways that cool air is drawn into the PC case.

If you can also monitor the power supply voltages that might give a clue. You may either need to clean the fan area on the power supply or upgrade it to a higher wattage rating.

All stabs in the dark, but it looks very similar to problems I had a few months ago.

You mentioned that you were running the latest graphics driver. Is that one from the XP update site or is it the generic NVidia one for the chipset? I've found , so far, that the NVidia ones work best regardless of the graphic card manufacturer. You also get some "freebies" (usually) in the way of graphics tweaking tools bundled with the latest drivers from the chipset manufacturers.

Best of luck.

ST

[IcePack]

Running at 46 Deg. & Driver from the Nvidia site.
Thanks for replying

[SoftTop]

Is that the temp just before the crash, i.e. with FS2004 running?

If it's not being exercised, the CPU will run "coolish".

What about the supply voltages, did you manage to monitor them as well?

ST

[IcePack]

Yes seems to be fairly stable at that temp & voltages constant.
As I say it was fine before trying to load FS2004.
thanks again.

[IcePack]

Traced to latest C-Media driver (Audio) Rolled it back now working fine. So much for Microsoft driver signing.
Rgds & Thanks to all.