BSOD - Help!!

[Stockholm1984]

Since sunday I've been suffering from endless BSODs for no apparent reason. Was just watching a youtube vid when the system froze flashed up a blue screen for about 1 millisecond and restarted. After that it wouldn't restart again so after trying many things I resorted to reinstalling XP. That helped for a bit but then the same thing happened again. I then tried formatting the drive in case I'd picked up a virus or something but that wouldn't work so tried using DBAN to blitz the drive but even that wouldn't even start, most likely due to bad sectors on the drive apparently. I then had to resort to booting up my old PC and decided to order a new HD (Samsung Spinpoint F1 750Gb) which I'd wanted for ages anyway and thought this was as good a time as any to get one. Plugged that in and now I get a BSOD as soon as setup finishes formatting the drive with the message "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" and mentions the "CLASSPNP.SYS" file as well. Have checked through the BIOS but can't find anything different to how it was for the 5 or so months the systems been running without problems.

Does anyone have any ideas what could be happening? What's really thrown me is how randomly it all started as I hadn't installed any new hardware or software for at least a week before this started. And now I can't even install an OS on the system!

Full system spec is:

Asus P5E MB
Q6600 (@ stock speed atm with all the errors though was at 3.43Ghz before with no problems for at least 5mths.)
2GB 1066Mhz RAM
MSI 8800GT pre-Overclocked
1x Samsung Spinpoint F1 750GB (Boot Drive)
1x Hitachi 250GB (Storage Drive)
HP DVD-RW

[nevermind1534]

If possible, try testing all of thee hardware in another "working" computer. I've never been able to get xp to install with any overclocking.

[Luke122]

Make sure PNP OS = YES is selected in your BIOS. Also, some mobo's have an option in the BIOS for an "install mode".. try that too.

If this has just started happening, I'd check to make sure RAM and CPU/cooler are properly seated and maybe even just reseat them to test.

[nevermind1534]

It could be the RAM, but there's no way to tell for sure, until you've tested all of the hardware in another computer.

[Bopher]

It could be the RAM, but there's no way to tell for sure, until you've tested all of the hardware in another computer.

This was where I was heading too. Though I starting getting BSOD for no reason and disabled my paging file because the code tracked it down to 1) bad memory or 2) problems with the paging file system. Been working fine since then.

[xmastree]

Grab yourself a copy of the ultimate boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) and run the memory diagnostic.

[Stockholm1984]

Have run MemTest and couldn't find any problems there. Most recent things I've installed are a Tuniq Tower and the latest Akasa Vortexx cooler for my graphics but that was over a week before it suddenly died and all temps have been fine since. There's no one else around that I know with a PC that could take the parts to test tbh, everyone either has older desktops or laptops. So far I've made sure that PnPOS is definitely set to yes and even updated the BIOS. I did try and format it again just before and got the BSOD again but this time got "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" instead. It happens literally as the formatting hits 100% complete and tries to load the Windows installation files.

[crenn]

Pull out everything and take out the battery on the motherboard, leave it for 5-10 minutes before putting it back in and reassembling. While it's apart, look for any defects in the RAM slots.

[nailz]

I'd also suggest trying to run with one stick of ram at a time, typically this IRQL error is associated with bad ram.

Edit: Check your bios too to make sure your ram clock speed is correct. You're not overclocking the processor, are you?

[Stockholm1984]

Cheers for the tips guys will give that a try. I was overclocking the CPU when this happened but had been running fine at 3.43Ghz for a good few months with very reasonable temps. The RAM was running at a lower speed than its stock of 1066Mhz, think it was something like 1013Mhz. The overclock was my original theory as to the cause of the problem so knocked everything back to default but it hadn't helped. Will disassemble everything and post back once I've got it back up and running again.

[Stockholm1984]

Just to let you guys know that I dismantled pretty much everything, removed the battery and cleared the CMOS and everything does seem to be running ok now have got XP installed and updated. Nothing's crashed yet so fingers crossed it'll stay that way. Cheers for the help guys, a bunch of legends!! :)

[Stockholm1984]

Just a quick update, turns out when I sorted it before it wasn't actually sorted. When I eventually managed to get the system running for a long enough period I got a look at the Device Manager, turns out the HD control driver wasn't recognised and was causing data to bit put where it shouldn't be. Still, managed to reformat and first thing I did was find the correct driver on the MB support disk. Can't work out why I never noticed it before or why it took so long to go wrong. Ah well!