ok im getting frusterated with my computer(as im sure a majority of people do) but last night while listening to some mp3's, my sound started to act up and sounded like it was scrambled. i restarted my computer and got a STOP Error as follows: Stop 0x0000000A or IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. i restarted once again and i got another stop error message, but this time it did not list what it was, it just listed some hex codes. the three codes it listed were: 0x0000008E. 0xC000005, 0x806QAB13, and 0xF8264A64. i looked these up on the microsoft site, but nothing came up. i ended up doing a low level format and installing each piece or hardware one by one. any help or input would be great.

specs:
WinXP Home.
AMD XP 2100+
ABIT KR7a motherboard
512DDR RAM
Seagate Baracuda 60gig hard drives(2)
Lite-on 48x cd-r/w drive
Pioneer A05 dvd-r/w drive
ATI 8500LE video card.

p.s. i was using those round cables but i have switched back to the old flat ribbon cable for my hard drives. i still have to find a set for my optical drives.


Thanks in advance,
Josh

I'm confused. What were the results of the low-level format? Was the format successful? (I don't think a low level format was necessary in this case). Regardless, were you able to reinstall Windows upon reformatting?

i did a low level just in case there was somethng that could have been stuck that was the root of the problem(since a regular format doesnt always seem to get rid of everything). i was sucessful with installing windows. everything is running fine for now(knock on particle board).

a friend of mine mentioned that maybe the fact that i was using a visual style and i had tweaked AIM a lil bit to my liking could have caused a probem, but i dont see how it could.

May I ask what sound card you're using? It seems like it might've been a sound card driver problem ... the IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL is, to the best of my knowledge, usually attributed to corrupt drivers.

So everything is working good now, and you just are curious what the problem might've been?

im using the Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1. right now it's using the drivers windows assigned to it, but this is the second time this has happened :? . the first was when i installed the drivers that came with the sound card. im wondering if a d/l of the new drivers from creative's site would be of some help.

You might wish to try that. The only problem with that is, from my experience, the Creative Live! drivers are completely bloated and usually end up screwing my stuff up. If you install them, just install the drivers themselves and not all the excess Creative junk software

yea i've always done that. even with when i do that with my ATI drivers for my vid car, it still seems to install sensless stuff

I've known a machine with bad ram that also had that same stop error. If it acts up again, try switching the ram with some sticks you know work good.

wtf?! the sound just started to sound staticky again. i wasnt even doing anything, just surfing around. im d/l the soundblaster drivers right now. maybe i will order some new ram or something.

just ordered some new ram. should be here sometime this week. ill post an update later on.