New Microsoft Update Leads to IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_LESS_THAN Message and Blue Screen of Death   - 5,563 Views, 6 Comments

Summary: Got an IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_LESS_THAN error? Plagued by Stop 0x0000000A (0xFFFFFFE8, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x804DA07F) and a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)? Read on...

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One of the automatic updates pushed out by the Microsoft mothership to their legion of faithful has caused much gnashing of teeth as computers have flipped the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) to their owners with the cryptic error message “IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_LESS_THAN” followed by the even less succinct “Stop 0×0000000A (0xFFFFFFE8, 0×00000002, 0×00000001, 0×804DA07F)”.

This latter is affectionally known as a “Stop 0×0000000A error”, it happening frequently enough to warrant its own nickname.

According to a source that the Internet Patrol unearthed, the “Stop 0×0000000A” and “IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_LESS_THAN” actually both point to the same issue, and that is that “a kernel-mode process or driver attempted to access a memory location to which it did not have permission, or at a kernel interrupt request level (IRQL) that was too high. A kernel-mode process can access only other processes that have an IRQL lower than, or equal to, its own. This Stop message is typically due to faulty or incompatible hardware or software.”

There, we hope that helps.

No?

Well, according to one source, the fix for them when they got the BSOD with the IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_LESS_THAN and “Stop 0×0000000A (0xFFFFFFE8, 0×00000002, 0×00000001, 0×804DA07F)” error was to:

1. Reboot and hold down the f2 key as soon as you see the splash screen (on a Dell computer that is the initial screen with the Dell logo); and

2. Then hit Alt-E and then Alt-F

I don’t know why that works, but it does.

If you are a masochist, and want to read a more technical analysis, you can check out this no longer available, but cached, page from Microsoft dealing with the IRQ stop error.

New Microsoft Update Leads to IRQL_NOT_GREATER_OR_LESS_THAN Message and Blue Screen of Death

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6 Comments »

  1. This is why I no longer use Windows. MS releases patches with out fully testing them, not to mention the operating system is insecure to boot. I’m not a MS hater but they could at least test patches before releasing them to the average user which won’t have any idea how to undo the patch.

    I switched to Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com) 6 weeks ago and haven’t looked back. It truly is a user friendly Linux distro. I highly recommend it, if you have the time to learn.

    Comment by Dan — 4/19/2006 @ 6:30 am

  2. Which MS patch is this article related to???

    Comment by will — 4/19/2006 @ 1:15 pm

  3. This is exactly what happened to my Dell Dimension desktop about 2 wks ago, however, the F2 AltE AltF does not seem to work. I can only start my computer in SafeMode and cannot restore to a previous restore point. WHAT NEXT? HELP?

    Comment by N.PALMER — 3/2/2007 @ 5:28 am

  4. What Microsoft Update was it?

    Comment by William — 4/4/2007 @ 3:10 pm

  5. I don’t know why this works either but it sure did the job! Thanks for posting the solution…

    Comment by Eric — 3/21/2008 @ 10:59 am

  6. Hi!!
    I have got many times the following error: STOP: 0′0000000A (0′C13B008B, 0′00000002, 0′00000000, 0′804DBC95). Which might cause this error?
    Kind regards
    Fellifel

    Comment by Fellifel — 7/2/2008 @ 6:24 am

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 This article first appeared on 4/18/2006
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