IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
This is Microsoft’s way of saying, “you’re fucked, buddy.” A quick Google revealed that the problems could be anything from misconfigured software to incorrectly connected cables to faulty memory or power supplies. It was indeed a chilling read, like I was browsing the menu at the Inquisition buffet.
If you have arrived here via Google suffering the same dilemma, here’s what fixed it for me: uninstall BootSkin. Here’s what most definitely didn’t fix it for me: turn off caching and shadowing in the BIOS. If I knew anything about hardware (and I have a C- to suggest that I don’t) I could tell you why that mattered. However, all I can tell you is that with those turned off, your computer will slow down by a factor of 100. This can seriously disguise the fact that you have fixed the actual problem. Thanks, Microsoft!
During the period that I thought I faced a hardware problem, I mused over whether I wanted to go through dealing with that crap. I’m really not into hardware. And I mean, I could get a whole new computer for less than $1000. At one point I turned to my torturer and said, “how about I throw you in the fucking bin? How would you like that?”
There are many lessons to learn. First of all, don’t be emotionally decisive. I suspected from very early on that BootSkin was at fault, but didn’t uninstall it straight away because I really, really like BootSkin. (Well, not so much now.) In fact it is only the fresh feelings of trauma that stop me immediately reinstalling it. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold out. (Oh, I shame me.)
Anyway, guess what the first thing I did afterwards was? A full backup. It goes without saying that this would have been only the second best time to do so, had this been a hard drive failure.
On a related (if you happen to be in the know) note, are you aware that there are easter eggs in the home of Bartleby? For example, the Windows XP Silver theme has been available as an alternate stylesheet since earlier this year. That was, of course, hardly user-friendly, so with a little inspiration (from none other than Mr GrayModern) I whipped up a stylesheet switcher. You can access it in the (and here’s where it gets confusing) View menu. No, not that View menu. Well, actually it is still there, but now it is in the other one as well. And it is better there. In fact, it uses Javascript to do the switch and set a cookie, and PHP to read it back and set the sheet for subsequent page loads. If I may say, I feel that NotePress is pretty much my coolest project ever. Thank you, Bartleby.
I started my DVD collection today (assuming you don’t count those bonus discs that come with CDs), and already it has swelled to three titles:
Oh and Filthy’s back, if you didn’t notice. He’s got right back into his work, giving one finger to Aeon Flux. Good man.
I like it how it’s my site, and I only found it about it here too. Not complaining! Surprises are wicked, and I like Silver.
Bring that Lost in Translation to the flat sometime. I’ve only watched it 14 times - it hasn’t quite completely sunk in yet.
Comment by Santadog — December 9, 2005 @ 7:50 pm
Hey! I get this once every few weeks on my PC that I’ve had since the start of the year. It generally seems to happen when I alt-tab out of Doom 3 while burning a DVD, rendering a movie, and having Firefox open with 35 tabs (along with various other applications that I’ve been to lazy to close). I’ve decided not to mess with it, because I know that It’ll take me weeks to find the problem, so instead I don’t multi-task so much. It is a farily scary error anyway, but thankfully it hasn’t done anything bad to my hard drive yet.
Comment by James — December 11, 2005 @ 5:25 pm
Aye, well good luck with that. Just remember, a fully backed up computer is a happy computer. Or at least, it is a sad computer that can easily be replaced by a happy computer.
Comment by db — December 12, 2005 @ 1:57 am
[…] Now, we all know how important it is to back up, right? Just realising this is the first hurdle - well done, you are already ahead of the majority of computer users. (Who will one day discover that while ignorance is bliss, it also comes with a shelf-life.) Now, actually doing it. Ideally you want to back up to two kinds of media, one of which will be in a geographically different location than your computer. A webserver would be good, but that would take just a little while, and who wants all their personal stuff over on someone else’s internet-accessible server? Burning to a CD or DVD, or saving to an external hard drive, is more realistic. Or, you can be like me and just copy from one of your internal hard drives to the other. This is really easy, and covers the most likely problem (isolated hard drive failure). Note though that it isn’t very reliable, and backing up to external media from time to time would be the smart thing to do. […]
Pingback by Simple, Crude Backup Batch Script | db.rambleschmack.net — August 6, 2006 @ 11:31 pm
Several websites (including micro-”what do you mean, it’s not genuine?”-soft) said that (re)installing XP-SP2 will cure this problem. Great, I thought. Now all I need is a way to stablise the OS long enough to achieve this, and we’re home and fucking dry!!
How about a virus? It’s possible! My AV did detect a virus on the PC around the same time as this problem started, can’t recall what it was exactly, w32 of some kind. Coincidence?
And just to add further confusion, we had a huge electrical storm a couple of days before the problem started. Yeah, I know you should switch off and unplug, but hey, what the fuck else was I going to do? It was raining!!!!
I’ll keep chipping away at the list of possible causes and let you all know what it turns out to be but from what I’ve read so far, whatever it turns out to be on my PC, has absolutely no relevance to what’s causing it on yours!
Comment by Pookie Bumster — August 23, 2006 @ 9:31 am
[…] I was wandering through The Warehouse earlier this year, looking to kick off my DVD collection, and I saw the Cool Runnings DVD. Cool Runnings!, I thought. Jamaica has a bobsled team! I loved that movie in primary school. Buy buy buy! And I did. […]
Pingback by Sucker | db.rambleschmack.net — September 10, 2006 @ 6:02 pm