IRQL Not Less or Equal...Won't Start Up?

[Farrar]

My friends Dell 4550 will not start. If you press the power button, you can see the green lights flickering on both CD-ROMs, the Dell logo appears on his LCD monitor, then the monitor goes black and the CD-ROM lights will disappear BUT all the lights on the rear of the tower are still lit and you can hear the CPU fan running.

If he continually, like for 30 minutes, presses the power button, he will occasionally get to the point BEFORE the desktop appears where he gets the blue screen and this message:

“IRQL Not Less Or Equal…check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates. If problem continues, disable memory options..Etc. The, he gets the stop error:

stop: 0X0000000A, C0XFFBDFC58, 0X00000001, 0X00000000, 0X8050DB90.

I have yet to see his Dell get even to this point and have not been able to access the BIOS. He has added no new hardware, uses an ADSL modem {Westell}, and has made no software OR hardware changes.

Could this be faulty RAM-bad video card?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeff Farrar

[NooNoo]

according to this (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314063) a piece of hardware just died.

[Farrar]

according to this (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314063) a piece of hardware just died.

Thanks NooNoo. I am "guessing" video card{?} or possibly memory.

If it were you, what would you try first keeping in mind we'll have to purchase whatever we "guess" will fix it just to try it.

Thanks NooNoo,

Jeff Farrar

[NooNoo]

You can run a ram test and a hard drive test booting from floppy - does the machine post everytime?

memtest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/)
powermax hdd test (http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/?epi_menuItemID=3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068&epi_menuID=976d37cd478c5826433f226075b46068&epi_baseMenuID=976d37cd478c5826433f226075b46068&channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=22)

Assuming it's out of warranty, open it up and disconnect any and all devices apart from the floppy drive, the vid card and one stick of ram. Get into bios and shut off any and all onboard stuff such as usb, sound, modem, nic etc...

Then add them back one at a time starting with the hard drive first, then cdroms, then pci devices, then the onboard stuff.

While you have it open, examine the main board and cards for any signs of burning or bulging capacitors.

Look at the pic, do you see how the capacitors have rounded tops? They should be flat.

http://www.infinetivity.com/~jsampson/rsoh/010601/rsoh02.jpg

[Farrar]

No...it rarely will post. It MIGHT get to the Dell logo but immediately goes to a blue screen with the "IRQL-shutting down to prevent further damage-memory dump" screen BUT it will stay at that screen until you turn it off. I might add that the Dell logo is also the very 1st thing to appear on the monitor. Once any signs of life are shown on the monitor, it goes blank. Getting it there take pressing the power switch for at least 30 minutes. but, I have yet to see more than the Dell logo whereas the monitor then goes blank.

Thanks for Your continued help :)

Jeff Farrar

[NooNoo]

Ok start with the strip down of components, see if it will post then. Remove the floppy drive if necessary.

You may be looking at a faulty power supply....make sure its not proprietory!!

[Farrar]

Ok start with the strip down of components, see if it will post then. Remove the floppy drive if necessary.

You may be looking at a faulty power supply....make sure its not proprietory!!


Thanks NooNoo. I created the Memory Test floppy and willl have him try that. Then, when I get back into town, we'll try the strip down of components. He has only 1 stick of 184 pin 256mb RAM.

This link displays his power supply per the customizied Dell Support Center:

http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/dim4550/techov.htm#1101836

Thanks Again NooNoo,

Jeff Farrar

[heffo]

I think you will find this is a ram problem. Replace ram and see how you go.

[Farrar]

Thanks to all. I replaced the RAM and all is working fine.

Jeff Farrar