[disfunktional.]

Hellooooo SOOMPI tech geniuses =D
Well yesterday I was photoshopping & watching a show on megavideo at the same time and both mozilla & photoshop crashed on me because "Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low" that's what the pop up window said & when i tried to turn on PS again it says i have to activate it because the trial is over...when i already activated 2 years ago. So i left the cpu alone for awhile & since it was ok i finished watching the show. After finishing I turned off the cpu and went to sleep.

Today, I turn it on and it starts up normally until it reaches my desktop. The usual start up programs load normally but after about 20-30 seconds the screen turns black and goes back to the start up loading screen (this screen). Then everything starts up again up until 20-30 seconds into the desktop and it goes black, the whole cycle continues again. It happened for 15 minutes, and since i couldn't just turn it off, I had to unplug the power cord. So how it is still off.

I bought this in the beginning of 2006, it's Windows XP, 512mb RAM, & 180 GB

i think the problem is the ram, is it? Back then i didnt even know what ram was & i bought something barely 1GB >__> Anybody knows how to cure this? Thank you!

[Meenuh]

Could be a virus.

So you're saying that your computer continuously restarts? Try getting into safe mode.

[disfunktional.]

Could be a virus.

So you're saying that your computer continuously restarts? Try getting into safe mode.

Yes it automatically restarts. It's fine in safe mode but I can't connect to the internet or anything. I pressed F8 when it restarts to get more booting options one of them was disable restarting when system failure or something, so when it went blank the blue screen of death showed up with

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

it just tells me to restart which i did over and over again until finally the cpu stayed on for a good 2 and a half hours or so then shut off and now it's shutting down at start up continuously again >____>

I don't think its a virus but something with the ram or hard drive. i can't keep the cpu on long enough to try changing any settings. I spent the 2 1/2 hours transferring files to my laptop so that explains why i didnt do anything ><"

[awdark]

Im glad you can backup your files then.

Do a repair install. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm It will generally fix your problems and will be good.
That driver not irql something error is usually just a driver conflict for something. I know thats very vague but I don't know how to hunt down the cause unless you know what you did. Last time I got that was from installing a virtual CD drive and it didn't like my driver but didn't let me get into windows to delete that one file.

[disfunktional.]

Im glad you can backup your files then.

Do a repair install. http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm It will generally fix your problems and will be good.
That driver not irql something error is usually just a driver conflict for something. I know thats very vague but I don't know how to hunt down the cause unless you know what you did. Last time I got that was from installing a virtual CD drive and it didn't like my driver but didn't let me get into windows to delete that one file.

The thing is i didn't finish backing up the files TT-TT
My cpu did not come with an XP CD, so now im stuck D:

[K evin]

Yes it automatically restarts. It's fine in safe mode but I can't connect to the internet or anything. I pressed F8 when it restarts to get more booting options one of them was disable restarting when system failure or something, so when it went blank the blue screen of death showed up with

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

it just tells me to restart which i did over and over again until finally the cpu stayed on for a good 2 and a half hours or so then shut off and now it's shutting down at start up continuously again >____>

I don't think its a virus but something with the ram or hard drive. i can't keep the cpu on long enough to try changing any settings. I spent the 2 1/2 hours transferring files to my laptop so that explains why i didnt do anything ><"

That error has something to do with the RAM. Your computer was trying to access your virtual memory with a process that is too high (hence not less or equal in the error).

If you can try these things:
1) Make sure you are using proper drivers for all devices connected to your computer
2) If you have more than one stick of memory installed remove 1 stick. If your computer works normally after this, then that piece of RAM went bad.
3) Take out all pieces of equipment in your computer expect for CPU, Fans, and memory and video (if possible, use onboard video). See if your computer will POST (the screen that shows with all the info about your computer). Keep trying different combos to isolate the bad part. I am pretty sure you blew your RAM to bits. Try to purchase another piece of RAM.

I actually think your problem is that you are running too many things at once with a computer that is not so powerful. Do not run Photoshop and something
else at the same time because Photoshop uses a lot of memory.

[awdark]

~~

How often have you had ram actually fail on you, assuming no overvolting/overclocking? With all the computers I used and abused I have never had ram fail. There was one time where I ran memtset86 and got errors. I thought woohoo and sent it back... then got the same problem. Turns out it was my motherboard going bad, everything associated with the northbridge failed usb, hard drives etc. Of course it isn't impossible for ram to fail, I mean processors even fail. But generally ram doesn't get very hot and is user error giving the memory ESD damage that causes ram damage.


But if we continue with this theory, and its perfectly sound (blue screens are often caused by page faults) you can download memtst86 http://www.memtest.org/ and burn it to a bootable cd so you don't need to diagnose windows it will just check the ram and only ram.

[disfunktional.]

K evin : thanks ^^ yess, I will try taking out the ram stick this weekendd >___>

awdark : i realized my ram failed a lot, like once every 2 days cause i tend to leave my cpu on for days and i leave mozilla + sometimes photoshop opened, so when I start using the cpu again it lags & then the "Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low" window shows up. The whole cpu freeze, after awhile everything goes back to normal and this was the only time where i turned off the cpu after this event and it fails to start up properly again. Thank you for the link ^^ got to try that too =D

on the bright side i can still start it up on safe mode and back up stuff.
Can system recovery solve the problem too? I've been wanting to do a system recover cause some settings are messed up as well -.-

Thanks for replying guys!

[awdark]

That should do the trick. Depending on the type of restore, might wipe all your data though.

The virtual memory thing is just a setting where it gets set to something rather than being automatic. This screen shot was set on 3gb.. Long ago people believed it would be faster if you set it to a specific value or whatever. Automatic makes no difference never understood their point.

[disfunktional.]

Grr~ i'm sorry to keep returning but system restore isn't working either lol.
I put the System Restore disc in and start up the cpu but it just starts up normally & then loads about 2 programs before the

"DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" blue screen shows up & makes me turn off my cpu. The system restore settings doesn't even load, it seems like the CPU isn't reading any disc right now Gah~ do i have to change the RAM stick or something?

awdark thanks for replying :]

[awdark]

LoL okay, if it fails there then you probably have hardware failure. I would blame your motherboard before ram, but generally ram is cheaper. Either way its not good if it fails during a restore like that because lets say it was a disk error, drive error, or something then it will not blue screen and error instead. So this way we know its not good x_x

[emceej]

this happens to me too
glad im not the only one.