Hi all,

im having endless problems with my computer at the moment.

My hard drive recently broke down so i had to replace it and i have also just replaced the graphics card.

i was trying to install XP pro with a fresh installation from scratch and i couldn't get that working - it was coming up with all sorts of errors (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL) which after much investigation seems to be a problem with win XP which no one seems to have a solution for other than a new mobo.

ive now given up on trying to install XP pro and was going to go back to windows ME for a temp fix to get my computer running again. this installs fine and i get it booted up. the mobo drivers installs fine and then when i go to install the graphics card drivers it just crashes on reboot.

i then tried my graphics card in another machine and it installs and runs fine so i switched back to my old graphics card Geforce 4 MX440 to see if i could get that working and sure enough as soon as i install the drivers if crashes on booting up again and i have to go into safe mode and remove the drivers to get it back up. the only new hardware on this setup is my hard drive (maxtor diamondmax 9 8MB cache 120 GB ATA133) and ive tried all the checks from maxtor and this is in good working order.

im now at a loss all the hardware works but just not on that machine which leads me to be believe its now the mobo thats playing up?? would updating/flashing the BIOS help - i wouldn't really be sure on how to do this. everythng is compatible and im basically trying to get installed with just the graphics card and CD drives attached. if anyone has any ideas they would be much appreciated.

please help.

syatem specs:
mobo: chaintech 7VJL apogee deluxe
RAM: 1G DDR 266
HD: maxtor diamondmax 9 8MB cache 120 GB ATA133
Proc: AMD athlon XP 2.4
graphics card: radeon 9600 pro / geforce 4 MX440 (neither letting me insatll drivers)
OS: windows ME

If you have tried all the hardware in other sytems and they run fine then it could be the motherboard has a problem.

Have you seen THIS (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q311/5/64.asp&NoWebContent=1) article which seems to have some relevance to your situation?

thanks - ive seen that article and have read many posts on the IRQL error without success - it seems to be a problem with microsoft and some different RAM modeules/hard drives that cause this though i can't find a fix for it.

ok so if it is the mobo would flashing updating BIOS help and if so how would i go about doing this. thanks.

Heres a couple of threads that describe the procedure for flashing a BIOS if thats whats needed.
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23194
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24907

ok so ive now flashed my bios and updated it to the latest one and the same thing is happening. as soon as i install the drivers for my graphics card the system asks to reboot and then gets to the desktop and stops before the icons come up.

is my motherboard screwed does anyone no and if i need a new one can anyone recommend any good ones. via or nforce2???

One thing I see that might be having an effect, ME can only handle 512MB RAM, and you have 1GB. Pull some memory and drop it back to 512MB or less. Win9x versions run out of virtual caching addresses at 512MB and windows will run very flaky, and cause various odd problems.

Power supplies can cause some of the weirdest problems I've seen yet, might be worth testing with a different one. What wattage power supply do you have and how old is it? How much hardware is in the machine? Could be under powered, especially after the addition of new hard drive and video card, both of which will probably draw more power than the older ones, or the power supply could just be getting weak from age. Or both.

Also set BIOS defaults, see if a memory setting is causing trouble. several BIOS settings can cause strange problems. Main thing is to get that extra memory out of the machine until you get XP installed, or figure out what the problem is. Once XP is installed you can add it back. As long as you run ME it will be flaky with that much memory.

AGP aperture should be 64MB usually, that's the most common BIOS setting that gets changed. Most cards work fine at 64MB aperture setting. Other settings can affect stability too but I'd have to study your motherboard manual to have a good idea what...Be sure VGA Palette snoop is disabled.

Is the CPU overclocked? Do you have any older hardware that might not be supported by XP?

Is the video card the only card in the system??...No NICs, or Sound Cards, or Modem??

Go to microsoft.com and do a search on the error message you received. This worked for me for solving a unmountable_boot_volume error I had to fix.