Irql_not_less_or_equal

[Bahamut]

Oh, and I have not cleaned up my computer for a while (like a year!!). Is it time to get some compressed air and clean the machine out??

Also, I have lighting wires around my whole machine. I don't think they're doing anything bad, but it's a ***** when I wanna get into my machine. I'll hafta rework it soon..

 

[bmxfreakrider]

yes, clean all the dust out, that will help majorly. dust out the psu, that can sometimes breathe new life into a system, keep it from overheating.

get those wires organized, and try a different power connector on the hdd, the one you are using currently might not be making good contact, so try it with another one.

and the last thing to check is your hard drive cables, all of them, check all connections.

 

[Bahamut]

Ok, first part. Dusting... Do I have to do use compressed air or is there another method, like a towel?

 

[bmxfreakrider]

air works best, but the old fashioned way to do it is pull everything out, blow it off, and use a q tip, towel, cotton ball, etc...to clean all the dust off. the main places you want to be clean is the psu, heatsink/fan on the cpu, same for gfx, and make sure all fans are clean, also dust accumulates on porous surfaces near fans, so check that too.

if you got a vacuum with an exhaust port, do that, that seems to work pretty well with the corner attachment (the long one that gets into corners pretty good)

 

[Bahamut]

So, just get some compressed air and blow it at a reasonable distance from every part and just let the air flow?? Sorry I've never really dusted out a comp before (and I'm 19)

 

[bmxfreakrider]

about 8 inches away should do it for an air compressor (75psi+) for a air can, about 2 inches(on circuitry)

for fans, heatsinks, hard drives, metal surfaces on case, etc...about 4-5 inches with air compressor, about 2 with can still.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

sometimes with the IRQ not less or equal problem it can just be that the HDD cable is not plugged in properly. Make sure its firmly plugged in.

 

[networkgeek]

I would definately clean out all the dust with compressed air. make sure the computer is off. also make sure to read the directions on the can, like esp dont turn it upside down or on its side much when you use it and dont shake it. doing so could cause liquid to spray on the board instead of air.

in addition to that. go here Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic and burn the iso to CD. boot off that to do a memory test , let it make a couple full passes at least. if you dont get any errors then your memory is fine. (bad memory can cause all kind of weird issues)

if you want to check your harddrive you can go here Download IBM - Hitachi Drive Fitness Test 4.09 - IBM - Hitachi Drive Fitness Test - Quick, reliable method to test SCSI and IDE hard disk drives - Softpedia

burn that iso to a cd and you can boot off it to check if your harddrive is having issues.

if all hardware checks out and you still get errors then , hit start, run and type sfc /scannow . this will check to see if system files are damaged.

if that doesnt work then just back up data and reformat fresh.