Dell Inspiron 8600 “IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL” BSOD
:: Sunday, April 18th, 2004 @ 12:29:00 pm
:: Tags: Computers
This is mostly for me, to track my progress dealing with this problem, and for others to find, if they have the same problem. (Progress in trying to fix my recent BSOD problem with my Dell 8600).
Dell Support Community Post:
———————————-
Hey, guys. I’ve been loving my Inspiron 8600, which is a 1.6 Ghz Pentium M w/1GB RAM, Dell TrueMobile 802.11 b/g, 2x DVD+RW internal drive, and Bluetooth, running Windows XP with all recent updates from Microsoft.
However, a couple of weeks ago, my machine started blue screening every few hours, just randomly — whether I was active on the machine or not. Microsoft’s “Serious Error” tracking shows it as a device driver problem, but they don’t have any specifics on the problem. The message I’m getting upon crash is “IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL”.
Has anyone else been having this problem? I don’t have a lot of fancy peripherals attached to my computer. Besides what is in the machine itself, I use a Logitech USB mouse, and external firewire hard disk, and occasionally a various digicam media readers. But even when all is unplugged from the system, it will still crash.
Today, I went through all the Dell drivers for my machine and made sure everything, including machine BIOS and DVD+RW drive firmware, were current. I hope it solves the problem. But I wanted to get a note out to solicit any similar stories there might be out there, if they exist.
The other thing I should say is that sometimes when I shut the machine down, I’ll see a 1-pixel gray line run across the XP shut-down screen, right before it shuts down.
I also had the screen turn into a medly of colored blocks once — almost like old-school ANSI art — when closed my notebook and came back to it later. The screen stayed on, and the computer became very hot (while closed, with the screen on). It refused to respond to CONTROL-ALT-DELETE, and I had to turn it off by holding down the power button for 5 seconds.
Regards,
Eric Cheng
Links I’ve found with info about IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL:
http://www.newbie.org/help/messages/4617.html
http://community.sonikmatter.com/emagic/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=24;t=000489
Things to try (from forums):
Try: Update Windows XP — all drivers and BIOS from Windows Update and from Dell Support.
Result: No dice.
Try: Disable useless things that use IRQs
Result: Disabled serial port, parallel port, and modem. Still bluescreens.
Try: Remove hardware of some of the devices sharing an IRQ (I have eight different devices on IRQ 11, for some reason), and see if Windows assigns a different IRQ upon reinstall.
Result: Can’t really do this with a notebook. :(
Try: Advanced > Chip Configuration
- SDRAM Configuration > from By SPD to User Define
- SET SDRAM CAS Latency > from 2.5T to 2T. (apparently 2.5T is quite unstable…?)
Result: No option in Dell notebook BIOS
Try: Set RAM speed manually in BIOS, instead of using Auto
Result: No option in Dell notebook BIOS
Try: Disable ACPI (not sure if I can do this safely without a complete reinstall)
Result: Not really a good option with a notebook, since power management goes out the door.
Try: Yank one of my 512 MB sticks out, and test. Yank the other, and test.
Try: Throw computer out of 14th story apartment, and see if it works better.
I hate computers.
Journal RSS 
You know I had some problems like that (never the blue screen, I was under the impression XP was blue screenless .. ) what happened with mine was the screen just stuck, and i couldnt click on the start bar or the program bars or quick launch or system tray.
I could Alt Tab between prgrams but not do anything in them.
I also got an error, i forget what it was now, but after some searching I found a few forums with it in .. and eventually it all led to the cool websearch trojany thing, and a few searched later I found the coolwebshredder program to fix it, and then I got the Ad-Aware and SpyBot onto the rest of the files on my PC .. i am fine now … but it messed up my PC with crashes for a while and I had no clue why. it looked liked regualr windows errors, except for the fact that IE.6 had its favourties and home page messed with on every restart, i dont use IE anymore so I I make sure to keep checking for bugs like that. I think mine was a dll error message. It was such a convincing error Microsoft even put a messgae up saying they were working on fixing a new problem related to the error I was getting, but in the mean time I had to talk to my manufacturer. Shame Microsoft always pass you on to you manufacturer who says go to where you bought it .. um im 8000 miles away DOH
giles — your problem sounds 100% like a software problem. mine is likely a hardware problem, or a low-level driver problem.
I had similar problems with a dell inspiron 7500. It would blue screen randomly during the day, usually while downloading at high speeds (~300 kB/s). I had no peripherals other than a usb mouse. Another issue was that the harddrive (IBM deskstar) had a loud high-pitched idle noise. I thought it was a driver problem at first (as most blue screen irq_not_less_than_equal problems are) so I reinstalled drivers, updated firmware, BIOS, etc. But the problem persisted. Eventually I got a new hdd (cause I couldn’t stand the noise of the old one), and after I reinstalled windows on that, the problem never came back. I was able to get ~3 month uptime between windows updates. Anyways, I’m not sure if it was the new hdd or the reinstall that fixed the problem. But it must’ve been one of those. :p Just thought I’d share…
get a mac. save yourself from the headaches.
clearly, you do not know me. i will not switch to the mac, but it is not for lack of want.
even with my occasional BSODs (which seem to have stopped after some tweaking), i am much faster at the main thing I do on my PC (process and share photographs) — with the toolset that I use for images — than any Mac person I have ever met, including tens of professional photographers who also do this for a living.
the mac is out of the question until they (software providers) fix the problem (of dealing with still images). it’s just broken. i do periodically have mac lust, and then i sit down at a desktop and realize that my notebook is even faster. i know that the G5s are kick-ass machines and will run photoshop filters almost as fast as the fastest PCs out there, but that’s not all there is to the image editing workflow.
just because the majority of photographers use the mac doesn’t mean that it’s better at image stuff. it means that apple’s marketing people are very good, and that photographers don’t know shit about computers.
I am now having the same problem as you. It is the IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL for about 95% of the time, but occasionally I get a different message. Seemingly random, different actions have caused it. May be related to post-idling of a machine. What I mean by that is when the machine sits unattended and “wakes up” may be causing the instabilities although the BSOD rarely appears just after I start using it.
It appears sometime after or not at all at that session. I almost never turn my laptop off. When I bring it to and from work, I just put it in standby. My laptop was working flawlessly for about 6 months. It just suddenly start to do it. I have a theory that it is CPU overheating. I have disabled the smartstep from the BIOS (forces it to always operate CPU in lowest performance mode) to see if there is any chance that is it.
I am about ready to heave it out the window as well. Have you made any progress with yours?
I’ve have the exact same problem with the IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL BSOD message even the first week i got the i8600. My configuration is the same as yours and i have the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. Tech Support knew nuts as to what was going on and told me to reformat my Dell every time. Well, i’ve done that countless times and it never seems to work. I tried the Microsoft Memory Tester and it always seems to crash so i assumed it was a case of bad RAM. Took them out and tried running another memory tester program on them one-on-one (memtest86). Apparently my memory was all fine. I’ve managed to replicate the steps taken to make my system crash. With Microsoft Office 2003 Professional installed, trying to run a slideshow presentation in powerpoint or even opening a microsoft word document could cause the BSOD to appear and the system to freeze, with exactly the same display glitches as yours.
An interesting point to take note of if that this happens EVEN IN LINUX, when i’m using crossover office to run powerpoint. Now, i’m usually able to kill any task that hangs in linux, but for this case, its exactly the same as windows! Nothing short of holding the power button down for 5secs could fix. As such, i’ve concluded its some sort of hardware bug/incompatibility. My video card eventually gave way 4 days before my warranty expired. Luckily Dell did manage to get it replaced with a [apparently] refurbished one.
i’ve used compaq laptops and ibm laptops in the past and this dell has given me the most headaches. The IBM is 5 years old but still works till this day without a hitch. This 1 year old dell…well, i too am considering throwing it out the window…that is, after i rip out the LCD first given that’s the only component worth saving from this laptop.
I’ll let you know if I find out anything new.
My sister is using the 8600 now. I swapped the RAM out and it seems to be working fine for her…
I’ve had RAM that tests fine with memtest86 and still causes problems, and have stopped buying el-cheapo RAM as a result. Now, I only buy from the manufacturer or from Crucial!
If you have a Asus motherboard, more specifically or imoportantly an nForce Netorking controller (ethernet) with nForce4 that is you problem. Network Access Manager NAM Active Armor is known to cause what your talking about. I had a similar problem ande iut was abitch to figure out because there are no tracable symptoms…always a new cause of the bluescreen…I only heard from a friend…pretty lucky. nick
I am experiencing the same problem right now. The reason for that message and the blue screen is that my cooling fan stopped working. It never comes on, and as a result, after turning on the notebook and using it for 30 minutes or so, I see the BSOD and it stops responding. I have to turn it off, wait until it is cool again, and turn it on. And so I am looking for a new cooling fan for my Dell Inspiron 8600. To be honest, it has served me 3 years now and I am very satisfied. I guess it’s just getting older now :)
I just started having this problem last night. My Inspiron 8600 has been running great since I bought it several years ago. After reading Leo’s 8 June 2007 post, I think that may be my problem also, though I had not noticed the fan is not running….but it isn’t! Leo - did that solve your problem? -Marty
Also having this problem on a Dell Inspiron 8600. Blue screen of death with the IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL error and then a reset. The forum here: http://www.pcreview.co.uk/foru.....336054.php suggests a wireless driver problem. I’ve disabled the wireless card in the BIOS and so far no crashes but need to test properly. Possibly an Intel Wireless driver update will fix it?
I too was having the same IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL problem as everyone. My problem started about 2 months ago. I had tried reinstalling the OS several times, updating the video drivers, swapped out memory, and tried out a different hdd, but to no avail. I had given up hope, until I read Andy’s reply. I disabled the on-board wireless card in the BIOS and installed a wireless PCMCIA card instead. My Dell Inspiron 8600 has not given me any more BSODs. Thanks Andy.
Smae thing here. It started the other day, random crashes, blue screens and just stops sometimes. I had a similar issue a while back and replacing the memory seemed to work but now it seems to happen regardless of what memory I have int he system. Seems to be heat related. Sucks!
Right on the money Eddie G. I also too was having the same IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_EQUAL problem as everyone. I disabled the on-board wireless card in the BIOS and BINGO. No more shutdowns with blue screens of death. Using a wireless PCMCIA network card just fine! There was always something wrong with the onboard wireless card anyway since we got the Inspiron 8600.
Mike
I too had an issue with getting the blue screen and a note about IRQ. After doing a bit more research and getting an error messgae on the machine indicating a problem with the wireless adapter, I removed the Intel Pro device and installed a pcmcia wireless adapter. Problem solved.
The currious thing is that the configuration of the machine had not changed. Save for the install of Windows XP SP3. I presume that caused some kind of change for the interrupts that precipitated the problem. Who nkows, maybe there was a hardware problem with the Intel Pro card as well.