please please someone help!?

[Atticus]

im pulling my hair out!i have been running winxp for about 2 months but i was always getting stop errors.so i updated my bios as this is what i was told was needed.
im using asus a7v266 mobo with amd xp proccessor.i upgraded to their current 1003 from 1002.they have a very nifty flashing utility so i no i made no mistake.
immediately upon reboot i get this "irql not less or equal error".
i get this everytime now,i cant reload win 98,i can't get into xp with out a stop error.i tried reinstall but always get a stop error.any ideas?microsoft site is a joke ,i finally found where the info was at and it said that error comes up when upgrading from win98 to xp.im not upgrading....:confused:

[userserver]

now that you've flashed bios, clear NVRAM per motherboard instructions, then restore default configuration in bios and see if you can boot to safe mode. if you can, disable all startup files, and you should be able to boot to normal mode/reinstall drivers/etc.

[Mad Al]

Hi,

just reading your replies to the problem u mentioned clearing NVRAM.

When i boot the comp says checking NVRAM. Is this the basic installed RAM or something different.

Thanks

Mad Al

[userserver]

Originally posted by Mad Al
...just reading your replies to the problem u mentioned clearing NVRAM.

When i boot the comp says checking NVRAM. Is this the basic installed RAM or something different.

...

Are you sure your computer says "checking NVRAM"? If it does, that's fine. Most computers say "checking memory" and refer to the installed RAM. NVRAM is different from your installed RAM.

The most common installed memory type is DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory).

NVRAM is the Non-Volatile Random Access Memory unit on your motherboard. NVRAM is the type of memory that retains its information when the power is turned off. On systems with flashable BIOS roms, the NVRAM is actually SRAM (Static RAM) made non-volatile by continuously powering it with a clock battery.

You sometimes find the NVRAM referred to as CMOS, BIOS, or ESCD depending on a person's background.

CMOS is Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, a layer common in the manufacture of NVRAM to allow it to be powered by low voltages and current.

BIOS is the Basic Input/Output System, the code that allows different components to interact.

ESCD is the Extended System Configuration Data, a format for storing information about Plug-and-Play devices in the BIOS.

NVRAM contains the code for BIOS and System Setup (ESCD).
Windows and the BIOS access the ESCD area each time you reboot your computer.

When you clear NVRAM, you clear the ESCD area of its stored information, forcing BIOS and Windows to reenumerate the peripherals for configuration data and then allocate resources.

Sorry, this is probably more than you really wanted to know.

In some circumstances, you may encounter problems when you change the hardware configuration on your system. The system may not detect the hardware you have added, or may not accept the drivers. The problem could be that the BIOS continues to use the original Plug and Play (PnP) configuration settings retained in the system board NVRAM.

Clearing the NVRAM on a PnP system can correct a multitude of problems, ranging from modems that will not configure to a hard drive not recognized by the system.

Depending on system type, NVRAM is either cleared by a motherboard jumper, by using a selection in the system setup program to reset configuration data, or a keystroke combination while the system is booted to its setup program and has all keyboard lights lit. (It can also be cleared by typing commands into DOS Debug.)

Time for me to return to normal user mode. Hope you find this useful.

[Mad Al]

Hi userserver,

that reply blew me away.
You certainly know your stuff.
I am familiar with the idea of Bios and storing its settings in a CMOS chip and all that but this implementation of NVRAm is new to me. Thanks very much for taking the time to explain it.

Perhaps you might answer a further puzzle for me?
All my PnP devices are automatically set up (Interrupts and addresses) by the computer which i suppose it should do, but when I use SysInfo in Windows to examine their properties my sound card / video card and modem all appear to share the same interrupt IRQ 9.
I remember setting up cards in the old days of ISA to have different IRQ's to ensure they didnt conflict. Is my setup incorrect or just something normal under PCI/AGP? To be honest i am not very up to date regarding the PCI architecture and its implementation, but i seem to have a few spare IRQ's.
How can I change my cards to use them as the option is disabled if it is at all possible / useful to change them.

Thanks again from your time. I have saved your reply into a word document for safe keeping.


Mad Al.

[whocares]

It's ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface). It automatically sets all your IRQ's and DMA channels. Shouldn't cause any problems. It's a BIOS/OS thing.

[userserver]

You didn't say what OS you are using. That can make a difference, but first assume that you do have a PnP OS. Under normal operation, the system BIOS is responsible for setting the PCI device resource requirements.

I'm not sure how deep you wanted to get, but here's a little more.

IRQ's are part of the ISA bus standard. The PCI specification allows the motherboard manufacturer to determine interrupt assignments. Because there is no single method to assign an IRQ to a PCI device, you may experience problems installing multiple PCI devices.

When a computer with a PCI local bus starts, the system BIOS dynamically configures all the PCI adapter resource settings and requirements because the PCI bus and PCI devices use agreed-upon mechanisms for identifying themselves and declaring their resource settings and requirements.

PCI devices can share the same IRQs because the system BIOS builds a table that is called the PCI IRQ routing table. This table includes entries for each PCI device that is given an ISA IRQ that is mapped to a particular PCI INT number that is associated with the specific PCI slot in which the device is installed. These are combined to create a link value. The link value is used when communicating with the device, and although PCI devices may use the same IRQ, they all have individual link values. The table is built during the device detection phase of startup and normally only changes when a new device is installed, when NVRAM is cleared, or when windows pays some of its tricks.

After the system BIOS assigns resource settings and builds the PCI IRQ routing table, Windows loads and extracts the PCI and ISA Plug and Play-compliant device resource information from the system BIOS and reads the information from the PCI IRQ routing table. Windows can reassign the ISA IRQs that are mapped to a particular PCI INT number. Windows can also dynamically reassign the IRQs when a Plug and Play event occurs, such as docking a laptop with its docking station.

Sometimes when is is reassigning IRQs in this way, Windows may hang, reboot, or have a device not work when it tries to reassign the IRQs that are set up by the BIOS. You can prevent Windows from dynamically allocating ISA interrupts by turning off IRQ steering. This prevents Windows from dynamically allocating interrupts, and relies on your system BIOS to do so.

To further confuse the issue occasionally a PCI device is assigned an I/O port address or memory resource that overlaps with an existing PCI device therefore causing a PCI resource conflict on your system. If you have an IRQ conflict you get usually get a splat in device manager. You can also have I/O port address conflicts and memory resource conflicts, but these don't usually show up in device manager as splats--usually a device won't work properly or will work until you use another device that has a conflict with it. DMA conflicts usually result in driver problems.

With the limited number of IRQ's available, motherboard manufacturers developed bus mastering and bus IRQ steering to better utilize resources. This is why you see "IRQ Holder For PCI Steering" in device manager, especially when allowing BIOS to assign IRQ's.

The above is pretty much simplified--chapters can be written about it.

As a side note, with VIA chipsets, you want to have the most current 4in1 drivers to insure proper bus mastering.

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) sometimes find it necessary to disable IRQ steering even on new PCs to prevent hardware resource conflicts on devices they have installed. This does not cause any loss of functionality for the devices, it simply ensures that the devices will remain enabled to use a specific IRQ configuration that the OEM has found to work properly when testing the system.

And in closing, WIN XP uses a process with "virtual" IRQ's, allowing numerous devices (I think as many as 256) to share the same IRQ.

Later

[Fifi]

Hi Userserver. Sorry to **** in, but we have a sticky little problem on another strand, started by Bairbie. We need someone who can interpret the numbers that Windows spits out when its moaning about invalid page faults and kernel32.dll. There are a few of us that are tearing our hair out over this one. Are you able to help us at all?

[userserver]

always interested in new problems. will seek barbie thread