What Causes A "Driver Irql Not Les Or Equal" Stop/shut Down Event In Windows Xp?

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Anonymous answered
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Most commonly it is the CPU overheating. A close second would be bad RAM.

The first thing I would do if you have this issue is to run the machine till it gives you that error, then immediately reboot it, go into the BIOS and check the CPU temperature. 3/5 times it will be way too hot. Go to the store, buy a fancy new heatsink with a ball bearing fan (don't need it binding like a bushing fan will eventually do), pick up some thermal grease while you're at it, and install. Your problem will likely go away.

If not, get some memory that you know is good, and test that out in the system for a while. Be sure to pull out all memory that is currently in the system, or this test will do nothing. If it stabilizes after that, then replace the memory permanently.
thanked the writer.
Thomas Baker
Thomas Baker commented
Thanks for the advice, i just did a speccy benchmark and it shows one ram stick is 300mghz while the other is 333mghz these are the ram that came with the pc when i brought it.
Could this be the problem?

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