Disabling ACPI on Win2k

[The Nr Fairy]

I've had a trawl through the various web sites for info on disabling ACPI since my desktop PC has developed a nasty case of BSOD with "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" messages.

So far, very little joy - can anyone else help ? Or, going to the original problem - I replaced the Matrox AGP graphics card, as it had died, with an nVidia GeForce2 MX400. Since then - BSOD every 10/15 minutes or so.

Win2k, SP2, graphics card as above, PCI cards are Intel 10/100 network card, Belkin 4 port USB, Creative SoundBlaster and a SCSI card. Machine has 128Mb RAM which I'm going to test.

[ORAC]

Have you disabled ACPI in BIOS?

"The Plug and Play operating system settings in the computer's BIOS should not affect how Windows 2000 handles the hardware in general. However, Microsoft recommends that you set this setting to "No" or "Disabled" in the computer's BIOS. For information about viewing or modifying your computer's BIOS settings, consult your computer's documentation or manufacturer. Manually assigning IRQs to PCI slots as a troubleshooting method may work on a non-ACPI system, but these settings are ignored by Plug and Play in Windows 2000 if ACPI support is enabled. If you need to manually assign IRQ addresses to a device on an ACPI motherboard, disable ACPI in the computer's BIOS before installing Windows 2000".

To force ACPI Win2K not to install ACPI, when installing, see
here (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q216573)

[The Nr Fairy]

I think I have it cracked.

Situation immediately post-upgrade was BSOD every 10-15 minutes. I disabled ACPI in the OS - in the Device Manager -> Computer -> Properties -> Driver tab I updated the driver, and manually chose the "Standard PC" driver rather than the existing "ACPI compliant" one. Rebooted, it discovered the connected devices, and all was mostly well.

Removing all but essential cards then replacing one at a time cured it until the SoundBlaster 16 PCI was re-installed, then it all kicked off again. Moving that one card to the only other available slot stabilised things again. So far so good. If the machine remains stable I'll re-enable ACPI to see if it works - nice to have the machine turn itself off after a shutdown.

[Edit]
Me and my big mouth. Still, I suppose 1.5 hours of uptime is better than 0.15 !