Nv4_disp.dll IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL reboots

[Benihana]

CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4800+
M/b: ECS KN1 SLI Extreme
RAM: (2x) 1GB PC3200 DDR
GPU: (2x SLI) PNY nVidia GeForce 7600 GS w/ 512MB GDDR2
PSU: Corsair HS520W
OS: WinXP Sp2
ATA133 HDD: WD 250GB (Main disk)
Other sata2 HDD: Seagate 750GB, WD 1000GB, WD 2000GB
Case: Aspire X-Superalien with 6 fans.

Hello. First off, when my computer boots I have ActiveSMART, Malwarebytes, and AVG 9.0 running.

What happens is my computer will spontaneously crash. If I'm playing a game, then the computer will just freeze, looping the last second of sound over and over indefinitely. It does not respond and I have to do a cold reboot. If I am merely reading documents or perusing the internet, then the computer will BSOD and leave a minidump. The crashes occur randomly and all point to nv4_disp.dll and irql_not_less_or_equal.

Some things you should know, one of my gfx cards does not have a fan. It burned out months ago, and my case fan cools it. I actually bought the second gfx card to replace it, but thought that my case does a sufficient job as it is so I could SLI it instead. I use nvidia system monitor, and my "broken-fan" GPU never runs more than 2°C hotter than my working gfx card. They average around 45-47°C when idle, and never more than 70°C when playing games.

With that said, I have removed the broken card and used only the newer working gfx card. I have uninstalled and manually deleted (in safe mode) all gfx drivers and references to nv4_disp.dll and re-installed with nVidia 195.62 drivers. The problem persists. I have removed the working gfx card and left only the "bad" card in, and it still persists.

I have run memtest86+ 2.11 on my two sticks of RAM together and separately for at least 9 passes each time, and never once did I get an error.

I have also deleted AVG 9.0, malwarebytes, and ActiveSMART (so that nothing is running on boot) and still the computer will crash.

If somebody knowledgeable on the issue could take a look and let me know how to go about resolving this, I would be very much appreciative. Thanks.

 

[kimsland]

All minidumps point to:

BugCheck 1000000A
nv4_disp.dll

Looks like a driver issue, for your nVidia Video Card Try confirming they are updated:

nVidia Video Card Drivers

You should also update to XP SP3, all is well with this now, for many.many months

 

[Benihana]

Ah, I clicked the nVidia link and it verified that my drivers are up to date.

Also, I haven't updated my system to SP3 because I typically like to do a fresh Windows install, and then apply all available windows updates at that time. I don't like the idea of patching an existing system over and over again. However, I read the release notes for SP3, and there seems to be one patch pertaining to the error I described. I am currently downloading SP3 and will let you know how the system runs after updating. Thanks kimsland!

 

[Benihana]

First, I apologize for the delay in reply. It turns out that SP3 fixed the problem for me. After installing SP3, I browsed the list of fixes, there appear to be 3 pertaining to the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Usually I'm of the opinion that if it isn't broken, don't fix it. But if anybody else seems to be having the same problems as me, then I would highly suggest updating your computer to SP3. Thanks to kimsland for their help.