Please help: Get my audio PC out of B.S.O.D loop

I know I am pushing the limits of what exactly "audio hardware" is, but I am confident some kind soul on here can provide the clues to help with my dilemma.

I have a Windows 7 PC running foobar, and somewhere along the way I screwed it up.

After 10 minutes or so I get the Blue Screen of Death; the highlighted error is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

This I Googled only to offered multiple Registry cleaners and other software enhancement products claiming to fix aforesaid error. I am quite prepared to pay for a guaranteed fix but am also highly sceptical as to which one.

I also discovered that the the System Restore Point I thought I had set a month or so ago, was only a figment of my imagination i.e. non existent. I also figured out where Windows hides the Mini dump of the error but am mystified as to how I glean any clues from this.

Help please

 

It's most likely a Chrome startup vs. Windows error.

In the Start menu, type msconfig, then hit Enter. In msconfig, click the Startup tab, then scroll to find the Chrome.exe program and untick the box. Chrome is trying to start while Windows is starting, or, after Windows has settled down after a boot, Chrome's autostart is not getting along and some Windows process.

If you do not have Chrome installed, check through the Startup tab in msconfig for any other browsers or heavy programs (i.e., non-utility programs) that are set to start automatically whenever Windows is rebooted. Uncheck them.

If you haven't ever checked the Startup tab in msconfig, you may be surprised by just how much needless junk is in there.

 

Thanks Agitater for responding so speedily!

I looked in msconfig (as directed) found no entry for Chrome .exe (although I have Chrome installed) but thought laterally and unchecked two entries for Google Update.

I have been listening to Al Di Meola uninterrupted for over an hour !

Relieved (& still slightly baffled) because I didn't actually listen to any music post BSOD. I was too locked into trying to Google solutions.

I have been following your cogent observations about MQA btw. Thanks again.

 

You're welcome. Glad to help. Configuring Windows is a repetitive task, I think. Uninterrupted Di Meola is paramount!

As for the strange evolution of the MQA thing, forgive a few more comments.

Subsequent to my suggestions about MQA being the latest in a very long line of money-making licensing schemes that also serve to goose activity in the industry (which supposedly in turn serves to goose retail activity online), a number of articles (interviews and experts competing in some way with the MQA group and its Meridian parent) have independently appeared that seem to agree with my assessments. I'm not going to get smug about that just yet though, because the final jury is still out on any audible benefits that might be conferred by MQA processing of original source files and original source tape A to D re-conversion. Still, the main problem I've had with MQA is that in every single comparison listening session - including one that involved five people and four hours of back and forth listening - none of us could definitely identify the MQA tracks. So even when a couple of tech freaks set aside their PCM, FLAC, up sampling, down sampling, last significant bit, lossless, lossy, etc., etc., arguments and testing, and just listen for hours on end, they still can't hear any definitive differences let alone a definitive advantage or definitive improvements.

Lots of people sit and listen carefully, especially after prepping themselves for an MQA treat via an MQA DAC handling a TIDAL Masters stream of tracks. Audiophiles who set up in that way are the ones who most often report a dramatic difference (although even they don't always claim the difference is an improvement). Whether or not their impression lasts remains to be seen/heard. My feeling is that it will not last - that it can't last - because full MQA hardware decoding in a home system only present files that often sound slightly different from their non-MQA versions; a difference that is not an improvement. That's not worth hundreds or thousands of dollars for a compatible new DAC.

If the hardware MQA decoding has not yet been determined to be a complete waste of time, by contrast the software-only partial decoding that the MQA bunch (and TIDAL, among others) claims to have implemented via app updates seems to be complete nonsense at this point.

 

i think that is usually a driver error. is it 0x00000000a?

Windows 7 "IRQL_Not_Less_Or_Equal" 0x0000000a

 

RussK1Aug 2, 2012, 1:54 AM
Create a system restore point...

Open elevated command prompt

Open Start and type "cmd" and right click and run as administrator.

In the CMD prompt type "sfc /scannow"

After that you can run driver verifier.

1) Open an elevated command prompt and run as administrator.
2) Type "verifier /standard /all"
3) Reboot your machine
4) Run machine again until it crashes which shouldn't take long.
5) Verifier should list the faulty driver, once known uninstall the bad driver and re-install a good one.

After the crash & reboot, go into safe mode (during post press and hold F8).

Once into safe mode disable driver verifier
1) Open an elevated command prompt as an administrator.
2) Type "verifier /reset"
3) Reboot your machine


Another way for Verifier:

http://www.pchelpforum.com/xf/threads/how-to-enable-disable-driver-verifier.123478/

 

sublemon: thanks for posting. I am just about to sleep (it's after midnight in the UK).

I will study further with a clear head in the morning.

 

There's a small, free program called Who Crashed that analyses crash dumps, if you run into further problems.

 

Out of interest this is what Who Crashed That came up with following the BSOD

On Mon 20/03/2017 07:59:11 your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\032017-195219-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe (nt+0x4106F)
Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x16, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFF83885AE8)
Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

Thanks Mrtn 77 for making me aware of this program. Anyone care to comment or explain it's message?

 

I had this in an non audio context on my Win 7 laptop yesterday and found uninstalling Avast! cured it. Might of been the Secure Browser option in it even it you chose not to deploy it
(*typed using Chrome OS)

 

If you can get back to msconfig, disable everything on the "Services" and "Startup" tabs except those items manufactured by Microsoft. If your PC is then stable, you can try re-enabling a few at a time until you again get a BSOD. Keep notes as you do this to identify the issue.

Also, click Start button and type "uninstall" until you can select "Uninstall a program" under Control Panel. Go through this list and uninstall anything you don't need or no longer use.

 

PC has now been stable for more than 48 hours. Thanks for all the responses. It's been educational (although I still slightly puzzled why disabling Google Update worked)

 

Have you ever set up your printer for Google Cloud Printing?
If you set up your printer as a classic printer for Google Cloud Printing then Chrome needs to run at startup and get the printer connected to Google Cloud Print and do some other things related to getting the printer online. If you've set up a "cloud ready" printer then Chrome doesn't need to do all that. It's the classic printer that causes the extra work and extra startup process.

If you've set up a classic printer for Google Cloud Print then disable that printer in Google Cloud Print and see that fixes things.

If you're running a 64-bit version of Windows check to see if you're running the 64-bit version of Chrome. Go to the Chrome menu >> Help >> About Google Chrome. If you're running the 64-bit version the version number will have (64-bit) at the end. If you're not running the 64-bit version then download the 64-bit installer here (if the 64-bit version isn't selected by default then click on "Download Chrome for another platform" and select the 64-bit version). The 64-bit version of Chrome might be more stable, or possibly a reinstall might fix the problem.