i have spent some time researching this Blue Screen of Death now, and there seem to be a lot of different solutions to fixing it. could anyone give me advice on th most likely cause , as at th moment its a bit broad and i need to narrow it down:
am i correct to think
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL could be caused by:

Faulty ram - unliley, i have 1.5gb, (3 x 512) and have tested them multiple times with various software etc

New harware instalation - i havent installed any

a problem with IRQ numbers - unlikely (i built this pc and checked them when i built it 3 yrs ago - and nothing has changed since then, i dont think!) i heard that taking irq numbers off th graphcis card is a good idea - so th graphics card shares irgq numbers with a minimal ammount of other hardware... is this right? how do i do it?

th most likely cause is a driver conflict, or software conflict. i have installed some P2P shareware apps, but am not running them for th next week to see if th problem persists. if it doesnt then i know what software was doing it.... but if i stil get BSOD, then how do i diagnose what driver/software is cauing probelm?

i will check event viewer to see th log next time i get bsod

cheers in advabce u guys!

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HOOD

MS has admitted in the past that BSOD's are normally caused by drivers. Since they have no way to test all 3rd party software/hardware, you're bound to find problems. That's one of the reasons why Apple is known for "superior" products; they can control the entire system.

About the only thing you can do is what you've done so far. IRQ conflicts are unlikely nowadays. With PnP auto assigning your resources there should be no conflicts, and PCI gives "sub-IRQs" to the PCI slots. This actually gives you something like 4 virtual IRQ's per PCI slot so I honestly don't think it's an IRQ problem.

A time consuming but relatively easy method of troubleshooting is to disable all your startup software in msconfig and then enabling them one at a time. Realistically you should enable one and run your system for a few days to test it then enable another, if you have the patience.

If that doesn't work, then you might consider removing unessential s/w, such as your P2P apps, shareware, etc. and seeing how it works. Beyond that it turns into "standard" troubleshooting where you just try different things and see what happens. Just make sure you document what you try; not only will it help you from repeating yourself but it will help you if you have the same problem again.

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