BSOD during XP shutdown

Hi everyone.

Can't figure this out. A second after XP fades to black, I get the blue screen with the header IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL. The stop error reads STOP: 0X0000000A (0X000002DC, 0X000000FF, 0X00000000, 0X804E9D48). I know that this could be related to a driver, device, or service, but I don't have any idea how to troubleshoot this correctly. Disabling memory caching or shadowing is recommended, but this seems to put a heavy load on my CPU, so I quicly enabled it again. I also get this error after shuting down in safe mode, and none of the services I use normally were running.

I've removed/installed various drivers, and tried to repair the Windows insallation, which did absolutely nothing except give me a Redbook event each time I start up.

Win 2k server resides on the first partition of the HDD--no BSOD when shutting down in there.

Any ideas as to what XP is not liking would be very helpful.

Thanx,
Greg

For anyone who believes that this could be a hardware issue, here's what's in the box:

Soyo Dragon Ultra KT333

Athlon XP 1800+

Maxtor D740x

Corsair XMS PC2700 (2X)

MSI Geforce 3 Ti 200

Lite-on CD+RW

C-Media onboard audio

Realtek onboard LAN

There are a few things running at startup: Adsubtract pro (v 5.2); Sygate pro 5.0; Ad-Aware 5.8; Ad-watch 2.5; and Norton A/V.

Thanks again,
Greg

When did this start happening? Was there some software that you installed shortly before this?

Welcome Greg.
I see you have 2 sticks of RAM.Have you tried running with just one stick.
I know you don't get any BSOD's with w2k server,but XP utilises the RAM slightly differently,so it might be worth a try to start with.

When you rebooted after the bluescreen, WinXP should have given you the option to submit the crash dump file to Microsoft for free analysis. See http://oca.microsoft.com/ for details. If you provide your email address, you'll get an email reply with the results of the analysis. This is an easy way to find out if your crash is due to a well-known problem.

I see you have a GeForce3. Since WinXP shipped last year, newer drivers for this device have been released to fix a few problems. You can find them at http://windowsupdate.com/ and at the NVIDIA website. I don't remember if these include a fix for a Stop 0xA bluescreen, but I recommend the newer drivers.

Good luck
Vince

What the Reverend said.

There are many BSOD, but only one where IRQ_L is not less or equal ... it pertains to memory addressing. Like Rev said, remove one stick and run the PC. If the error occurs again > swap the sticks < and make sure you only run the PC with one stick. The chances of both sticks being bad are very low ... unless both sticks were mishandled before installation. Be sure to seat the sticks properly. Even one stick mis-seated will cause the BSOD you are receiving. Like Rev said, XP utilizes RAM differently than Win2K.

Thanks to everyone for such a quick response.

I've been trying to sort out what was installed when, and admittedly I'm not really sure. This is the first machine I've ever built, so I'm still learning.

I now have reason to believe that EZCD may be the culprit. A friend of mine was getting the exact same stop error except for the last parameter. He reformatted the partition and reinstalled XP, unchecking the default option to automatically restart in Startup and Recovery. He then reinstalled all the rest of his software sequentially, rebooting each time. The ONLY thing he hasn't installed was EZCD Creator. He is now able to shut down without a problem. We were using 5.0 with the 5.02 patch. Geez, I thought that was supposed to work.

I don't really have a problem with doing the same thing he did, I'm just wondering if there is another way to remedy this without slipping out the back door.

Even before I installed EZCD, I was not getting a BSOD upon shutdown, just random reboots instead, until I stopped that nonsense in Startup and Recovery. Around that time, a utility I downloaded called Ultimate Zip was locking up alot, so I uninstalled it. I was in the middle of uninstalling Admuncher with another program called Install Rite when my machine rebooted. Needless to say, I'm not using that anymore either.

The only wierd things I'm seeing in the event viewer now are redbook event IDs and Application Popup: Machine Check. Can anyone explain that to me?

Sorry about the long post.
Greg

Get the Easy CD patch to update version 5.02 to 5.1, this might solve your problem. Is it the Platinum version you are using?

It's Easy CD creator 5 Platinum. Maybe I downloaded the wrong patch in the first place.

Get it from Roxio HERE.