Ok, before we proceed, I HAVE ALL MY DRIVERS UPDATED. Yes, the BIOS, video card, motherboard chipset, Direct X 9.0c, Windows XP SP 2, all critical and optional updates are installed. Every piece of hardware is properly installed and is not damaged (it is functioning properly--- I have tested all the hardware, trust me). 2 different computers are having the identical problem. Both of them are AMD systems. One is using an Nvidia videocard the other an ATI card. All the other components vary. The problem -> Both computers crash when videogames are being played (and sometimes when listening to music files). How do I fix this problem? Some error reports >>> Device driver was the cause (BUT LIKE I SAID, ALL OF MY DRIVERS ARE UPDATED [DIGITALLY SIGNED BY MICROSOFT, NO LESS]) I checked my device manager for conflicts and found none. This problem has persisted for well over a year>>> HELP!
Also, an error report stated "IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL". I have heard reports about systems having IRQ conflicts because of the ACPI.
The reports about IRQ conflicts because of ACPI are rubbish, and in most cases people citing them are barking up the wrong tree. Yes, you'll see several devices on the same IRQ, but this is just an appearance. Win2k and XP make use of virtual IRQ's, but they simply display several devices on one IRQ. Secondly, these devices, especially PCI-based ones, have to be able to share as per the general specification. If not, they aren't in compliance. A few things you might want to do: run Memtest to check your RAM for errors. Next, get you some Omega Drivers. They're available for both ATi and nVidia cards. If you've got some cards that aren't the newest GPU's from the companies, nVidia in particular, you might want to use some older drivers instead as they're more tuned for the card you have, whereas the newer drivers tend to be optimized with the latest and greatest in mind. The last thing I can think of would be to check your CPU temps. If you're getting close to 60*C, especially at idle, then you need to look at your cooling solution.
My videocard is a Radeon 9800, so the drivers are good to go there. My computer case reports that my case temp is 86.2 F and my CPU is 97.3 F. I have run Memtest for over 24 hours and no problems. I have tested all of my components to no avail (see original post ^).
Remember (In my original post ^) that this scenario involves 2 different computers, so the problem must lie in software (as both systems are running windows XP SP 2) and not in the hardware (because they are both different in hardware [plus the rigorous hardware testing I put them through]).
Not necessarily, if both systems share certain hardware in common (especially a low-end PSU). I just wanted to get a complete picture of what we're dealing with before I start throwing suggestions out there. Along that line, do you have IDE to SATA converters in either system?
I seem to have found the solution myself. I chose the option "top performance" or "optimum performance" in CMOS a long time ago when I had an older BIOS update for my motherboard. When I rebooted, my system crashed everytime, so I reset to default settings. After that, I never tried that option again. Now, with my latest BIOS update, I tried it again. It completely fixed my crashing problem. I hope this information can help anyone who has a similiar problem.
