New build, having some problems that I just cant figure out. Specs i7 860 Gigabyte p55a-ud3 8gb adata Gamer 1600 (on compatibility list) running at 1333 Antec 650 earthwatts First, nothing is overclocked, I just want stability at stock speeds. It appears stable overall, at least at first, I had one blue screen installing 7, but after a restart it installed fine. Pcmark ran without a hitch, and everything seemed ok till I started installing all my larger apps. It took me a few tries to install Adobe CS4, I had a few errors and a blue screen (irql_not_less_or_equal). I ran prime95 and all seems well if I run the small fft or large fft tests. But if I ran the blend test, one worker would error out the moment I started the test. It was never the same worker and it was completely random, this happened like 8 times in a row. I let it rest for a few minutes and tried the blend test again and it was fine. I cant get the errors to repeat. Later I ran the small fft test overnight, no errors. I have run memtest 4.00+ twice overnight and both times I had over 6 passes and 0 errors, so I dont think the ram is to blame. I have read that the ram voltage may need to be adjusted. The ram is rated at 1600, 9-9-9-24, 1.65-1.85v. The mobo auto set the ram to 1333, 9-9-9-24 1.5v. I figured since it was on the compatable list from gigabyte I should leave it at defult. But should I change it? As I said memtest was fine. I ran checkdisk on my new hd, tested ok. The last symptom I had was transfering two 8gb files from a network pc to a local drive. First file tranfered fine, second blue screened halfway through (irql_not_less_or_equal). These issues seem quite random to me and really have me confused, any ideas? Thanks
Are you using a pcie sound card? If so, when you boot up the PC have a look at the Post Boot screen and see what devices are sharing an IRQ. You can hit PauseBreak key to pause at the post screen to see what device ID's are sharing an IRQ. Current day windows uses virtual IRQ's to get around devices sharing an IRQ, but it's not always successful in doing so. Most devices can share an IRQ, but sometimes timing can get screwed up a little and then you end up blue screening with "irql_not_less_or_equal". Sound card sharing an IRQ with a USB hub controller while using USB and a sound being played at the same time may cause the error. or Sound card sharing an IRQ with a network adapter could cause the same prob while copying files across the network. etc.. So that's why I'd say have a look at the post boot screen to see what devices share an IRQ. If there are features on the Mobo that you don't use then disable them in the Bios.. EG: Floppy disk controller, if you don't use a floppy disk drive then disable it. Hopefully it will free the IRQ it uses and leave it available for another device. To be truthful I haven't really had IRQ issues in newer day hardware, but in the older Pentium 2 & 3 and AMD k5 &6 days, it was common problem of the sound card and network card always wanted IRQ 5 or a sound card trying to share an IRQ with the video card. Some mobos handled sharing IRQ's well and some mobos it would cause random intermittent errors. Also in windows you have a look in windows Sytem information and see what devices are under Conflicts/Sharing.
something is using your IRQs and causing the conflict. try disabling all the devices you do not need in your bios, such as Serial and parallel ports, built-in sound (since you've got an X-Fi). in W7 search, type "system information" then go to Hardware Resources, IRQs and check if any device is shared, also look under "Conflicts/Sharing".
Really? Interesting. Could that cause the random Bland test error and the cs4 installer crashes? Ill def check it out when I get home.
I left the blend test running on its own while at work today, about 8 hours. I came home to find that the computer had blue screened sometime in the day. The on-board sound and floppy controller where already disabled. I turned off the IDE, Parallel, and Serial controllers in the bios. It appears that there are quite a few things sharing IRQ 16 on my system, sound card, usb controllers, video card, etc. Im running the blend test again with ide, serial, and parallel turned off, any other thoughts? Thanks
Just as a test.. Pull the sound card out and use the onboard sound and then run some lengthy tests. Are you using the current bios for the mobo, maybe newer bios may help. Also maybe a clean install of windows again with all the unused devices disabled in the bios. This way windows will use different IRQ's for the devices and maybe sort itself out.
Ok I finally have a symptom I can repeat. Every time I try to copy any large file (~8gb) from one location to another (no network involved) it bluescreens. Im beginning to think I just have a bad motherboard. When I first built this system I was using different ram. I couldn't get the computer to pass memtest with it so I rma'd it for different ram that was on the list. I passed memtest but now im having these issues.
