BSOD on startup

Hi guys, I'm having a problem with the IRQL_not_less_or_equal BSOD. I posted earlier but I removed that post and put a new one in a new thread cause it didn't seem like the same problem.

I'm not very technically-inclined but I'll try my best to describe the problem.

Once in a while I'll get the BSOD with regards to some random sys file (once I noticed it was tcpip.sys). I'll restart my com and it goes away till the next time. Until a week or so ago when it started crashing to the BSOD the moment I entered windows after logging in. Every time I restarted, it would crash and I had to do a system restore, which delayed the problem for a while until I installed something which added to the start up programs (ATI drivers). It crashed on the restart repeatedly and I had to do another system restore. Seems like every time I install a new startup program, this happens.

I thought it was a memory problem, so I tried taking out one stick of RAM at a time but it didn't solved the problem.

These are my com specs:
Windows XP Professional SP2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
2GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
Radeon X1900XT
2x Maxtor 6V250F0

Could anyone tell me what other methods I might try? I read through the thread regarding the posting of minidumps and I don't really understand. Should I attach the minidumps now or try something else first? I've managed to view my minidumps but it's all technical jargon to me.

Really appreciate you guys taking time to read this and am grateful for your help.

Sorry if this seams really unhelpful, but I've experienced a lot of "IRQL_not_less_or_equal" errors whit bad RAM and RAM running at too high speeds. I see that you have already tried testing your ram blocks one at a time, but did you also make sure that "Configure Timings by SPD" or similar option was enabled in your bios? (ignore that if you've already tried resetting the bios)
Are you 100% sure that it isn't the RAM? Could you borrow a friends RAM and try?

Hi, thanks for the tip. I tried resetting the BIOS and my com started up for now. A friend of mine suggested looking through the event viewer and I found this.


"An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation." It only started appearing after I took out my RAM sticks.

And then there's this which appears quite often:

"The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
atapi
PCIIde"

Are they in anyway related to the BSOD problem I'm having?

"An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation."Might indicate a problem with your harddrive or hdd controller.

If you have installed some new hardware recently try to uninstall it and see if the prolem goes away. It appears that you have device driver conflict.
Third party drivers are neither tested nor supported by Microsoft from what I have read.
Good luck

Hmm, any idea where I can view a list of drivers that might be third-party?

I haven't installed any hardware lately so I'm not sure which one to suspect.

The paging operation error has only occurred when I restarted the com, according to the event viewer. Thankfully I haven't had any BSODs so far.

Here is a link to third party companies, with other links http://www.computerhope.com/support.htm

Woah, that's a lot of brands of stuff on my com. Thanks a lot though, I'll try and crack my brain and see if anything comes to mind. I don't suppose there's a program which detects driver conflicts floating around somewhere, is there?

I do not know of any software that will detect driver conflict. But, you can download and run Everest home by Lavaly which will tell you everything that you have in your system and details of the associated drivers for each device.