Analyze a BSOD (irql_less_than_or_equal)

Posted by Bruno Reis on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Bruno Reis
Published on 2010-05-15T03:46:18Z Indexed on 2010/05/15 3:56 UTC
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Hello.

About 2 months ago I bought a new system and built it at home:

  • Mother board: XFX X58i
  • Processor: Core i7 920, using the stock cooler
  • Memory: 3x2GB Corsair DDR3 1600
  • Video card: NVIDIA GTS 250 (1GB)
  • Hard disk: 2x WD 500GB, 7200rpm

I have 2 screens plugged into the video card, and the system is connected to a 550W PSU. Nothing is overclocked.

After building the system, I stressed it a lot with Prime95 and rthdribl to check its stability. All my tests were perfect. So I reinstalled Win 7 x64 Professional and started using it normally.

The first week (2010-03-15) I got the infamous irql_less_than_or_equal BSOD. Ten days after (2010-03-24) I got another one. Then on 2010-04-09, 2010-05-04.

Since 2 days ago it became worse: I got one bluescreen per day! (2010-05-12, 2010-05-13, 2010-05-14).

I installed BlueScreenView to try to obtain some information, but I'm not able to extract any useful information apart from the bug check string (irql_less_than_or_equal), and that it was caused by ntoskrnl.exe (the first three at ntoskrnl.exe+71f00, the last 4 at ntoskrnl.exe+70600 -- which I suspect could be the same thing, as Microsoft could have patched this file in the mean time, so the address of the function causing it changed).

Then I stressed my memory sticks with memtest, they worked perfectly. After booting, I've stressed my GPU with FurMark and RTHDRIBL, everything was fine. Then I stressed the CPU with 4 instances of Prime95 while monitoring the temperature -- that never exceeded 85oC with the case closed --, everything fine. Finally I've stressed the whole system with HeavyLoad for a looooong time, everything worked just fine.

So, I have stressed most of the components of the system, but couldn't get any useful information from it.

Do you have any hint on what else can I do to find the culprit?

Thanks

Bruno

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