Help! Blue screen "ndis.sys" problem

[digitalwanderer]

I've been having a recurring problem with random blue screen lock-ups with Bubbles lately, it comes up with the "IRQ IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL" message along with the "ndis.sys" being the culprit.

What could it be? Any insights would be most appreciated, it's bugging the bejeebus out of me. I used to be once or twice a week, but yesterday it happened to me about 4-5 times and it's just annoying the piss out of me!

 

[Vadi]

In a german forum I read it's caused by a faulty ram stick.

 

[Dio]

I find that most XP bluescreens tend to be IRQL_blah issues.

Check the usual culprits: bad memory, bad motherboard, bad CPU, overclocking first - an hour of memtest86 catches 90% of those. After that, HD corruption, dodgy power and bad drivers, which are harder to trace.

NDIS is to do with networking: pull out the network card or disable the onboard LAN and see if it still happens?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Thanks for the tips you two, but I think I got it licked after some advice from me homeys.

 

[Dio]

In case it comes back:

If it works better after uninstalling a pile of stuff, then comes back later, I would be a touch sus of the harddrive - unless in that uninstalled stuff was something blatantly low-level networky stuff like a firewall. I've had bluescreens when the swap file was treading on a just slightly dodgy sector (although not under XP, perhaps?)

 

[digitalwanderer]

Thanks Dio, I'll bear that in mind.

I don't think it's hardware, I tested the bloody bejeebus out of my memory/CPU in dos and it all looked great at 12x200....I think it was just some old software incompatibility that came to light after installing SP2.

I'm just guessing, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Either way, I'm just gladder than hell to have some stability again. 8)

 

[Dio]

Yeah, my machine has been a touch twitchy since SP2. Eventually got around to finding the AMD64 compatible memtest and was relieved that it revealed no problems. Think it's three things

- the firewall software I use was very uncompatible with NX (found with the help of a blue screen or three and Google, fixed with a bit of system file editing)
- I needed a bit more cool air in the case. I have the HD mounted behind a bay cooler high up and the 9700 Pro in the bottom of the case was being air-starved, I think (found with Warcraft III, fixed with a low-speed case fan on the bottom front inlet: turned crash-after-ten-seconds into 2-hour stability).
- the Inquirer's website hard-resets my machine about every third visit, which is possibly another firewall interaction (found by empyrical observation: fixed by not going there).

Hasn't given me any crap for a week now though.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I couldn't nail down any particular reason why mine would lock, it was totally random....I'm just glad it's gone now.

Glad to hear yours is working too, nothing more annoying than an unstable box! :?

 

[Dio]

Yeah. I have a lot of dubiously stable boxes, but my main work machine and main games machine I like to make work perfectly and nail shut. Opening those is always a trauma.