ok my computer savvy disers... need some help

[surfergirl602]

We just got internet hooked up at our new house in Oklahoma. Really different from NY, that's for sure. Well, I get the computer set up, and I keep getting the blue screen of death.... with the same error, IRQL not less or equal. I've done some research and all the sites have different reasons and different cures... Is there any easy way to fix this or am I better off trying to find a place to get it fixed at? I don't want to screw it up more than it already is. I am pretty good at fixing things, but I don't know much about this error. All I know is that I keep getting it over and over again. If anyone has any info, it would be greatly appreciated!!! Thank you!!!

 

[Dax]

When are you getting this error...

Do you get the windows logo screen, then the blue screen?

You may want to see if you can boot into safe mode...


Oh is this Vista or XP?

 

[surfergirl602]

When are you getting this error...

Do you get the windows logo screen, then the blue screen?

You may want to see if you can boot into safe mode...


Oh is this Vista or XP?

I can log on normally, but usually after 10 to 20 mins. the error happens. It's windows xp. The desktop is about three years old. haven't had any problems with it before, and I haven't installed any new software. That seemed to be the answer I found the most, but I haven't installed anything.

 

[Vexorg]

Usually if something is bluescreening your system like that, it means that either some piece of hardware is going bad (my old wireless NIC was causing similar problems on my old system until I yanked it) or some driver got corrupted. Based on your description, I would suspect the network drivers. You might first try going to device manager (Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager) and disabling the network driver by right-clicking on the device and selecting the "disable" option, then rebooting. You won't have Internet at this point (until you go in and reenable the driver anyway) so this would be primarily to see if the system is stable with that driver disabled. If it isn't, you might need to try disabling other drivers (like display adapter or items in the Sound, Video and Game Controllers section) to see if that's the case. Basically with this approach, you can do process of elimination and determine what is causing the problem, but I suspect it's the network driver.