BIOS 2002 possible BSOD issue

[Tumas]

Recently my PC started to show me BSODs occasionally. It seems unrelated to whatever programs i run or if it is under heavy load or not. The BSOD is "IRQ No less or equal" and unfortunately, there are no other information about te exact cause. RAM is fine (i even replaced the old RAM when the first BSOD occured). Hard drive should be also perfectly fine: It is a Samsung EVO 850 (actually two, one for the OS, the other one for games) with 98% left of its lifespan. The only new part in my PC since i noticed the BSOD is my new 1070 graphics card and as the title suggests, i also updated the BIOS of my Maximus VIII Ranger to Version 2002. I highly suspect an issue with that BIOS because i hightly doubt a brand new graphics card would cause these errors. Unfortunately i did not run the latest BIOS with my old card to completely exclude a faulty graphicscard. Also i am running the latest drivers from intel and realtek (downloaded not from the asus website but from the corresponding manufacturers themself) but it should not matter, because i can get a BSOD directly after a clean installation of windows 10 without having anything installed. The strange thing is, that this BSOD really is only occasional. I can run my PC for hours and days without issues until at some point it crashes.
So the question is: Can a "broken" BIOS lead to such a behaviour or should i look somewhere else?*

[JustinThyme]

Your BSOD error in my experience is always 100% hardware, drivers or to much of an OC.
With your board the PCIe bus is supposed to be seperated and unaffected by clocks so that should take you to two things. Hardware or drivers.
Now you say is happening on clean install before you even load drivers. My opinion, time to RMA your new graphics card.

[NemesisChild]

Please list your system components including the PSU make, model, and age.

[ondersma80]

In addition to what NemesisChild asked, if you can provide the entire bugcheck code I can probably pinpoint it (0A, D1 etc). BIOS can probably be ruled out, as if that was the cause we would all be bsoding and there would be a 30 page thread here. Without knowing the system details and exact bsod code I would be staring at driver or memory.

[Chino]

Tumas wrote:
Recently my PC started to show me BSODs occasionally. It seems unrelated to whatever programs i run or if it is under heavy load or not. The BSOD is "IRQ No less or equal" and unfortunately, there are no other information about te exact cause. RAM is fine (i even replaced the old RAM when the first BSOD occured). Hard drive should be also perfectly fine: It is a Samsung EVO 850 (actually two, one for the OS, the other one for games) with 98% left of its lifespan. The only new part in my PC since i noticed the BSOD is my new 1070 graphics card and as the title suggests, i also updated the BIOS of my Maximus VIII Ranger to Version 2002. I highly suspect an issue with that BIOS because i hightly doubt a brand new graphics card would cause these errors. Unfortunately i did not run the latest BIOS with my old card to completely exclude a faulty graphicscard. Also i am running the latest drivers from intel and realtek (downloaded not from the asus website but from the corresponding manufacturers themself) but it should not matter, because i can get a BSOD directly after a clean installation of windows 10 without having anything installed. The strange thing is, that this BSOD really is only occasional. I can run my PC for hours and days without issues until at some point it crashes.
So the question is: Can a "broken" BIOS lead to such a behaviour or should i look somewhere else?*

If you suspect the BIOS is the problem, just downgrade back to the previous revision using USB BIOS Flashback. 🙂

[Tumas]

I already downgraded back to the previous BIOS version but since the issue is not that persistent all the time, i will have to wait and see if it helps or not. OCing is not the problem, because i also reverted back to stock BIOS when reinstalling windows (and never actually OCed that much in the past either; 4.2 for the i5 6600k max). Additionally, i am still within the 30days return timeframe, so i also might send the graphics card back just to be sure (also if i wait longer, return/replacement will not be that easy). But i guess the BSOD would then be more common when putting the graphics card under heavy load. Which is not the case. *BlueScreen viewer showed that the kernel gave the critical error which can be anything if i understand that right (there was also no additional information on the bluescreen). About the PSU: Leadex Superflower 650W 80+ Gold certified, 1 year old (+Maximus VIII Ranger, i5 6600k, Corsai Vengeance 3200 Mhz 16GB, MSI GTX 1070 X). I am currently about to reinstall windows again with the mainboard drivers from asus and not from external websites. If after all these things the error persits, i will report back with the dump file.

[emsir]

Tumas wrote:
I already downgraded back to the previous BIOS version but since the issue is not that persistent all the time, i will have to wait and see if it helps or not. OCing is not the problem, because i also reverted back to stock BIOS when reinstalling windows (and never actually OCed that much in the past either; 4.2 for the i5 6600k max). Additionally, i am still within the 30days return timeframe, so i also might send the graphics card back just to be sure (also if i wait longer, return/replacement will not be that easy). But i guess the BSOD would then be more common when putting the graphics card under heavy load. Which is not the case. *BlueScreen viewer showed that the kernel gave the critical error which can be anything if i understand that right (there was also no additional information on the bluescreen). About the PSU: Leadex Superflower 650W 80+ Gold certified, 1 year old (+Maximus VIII Ranger, i5 6600k, Corsai Vengeance 3200 Mhz 16GB, MSI GTX 1070 X). I am currently about to reinstall windows again with the mainboard drivers from asus and not from external websites. If after all these things the error persits, i will report back with the dump file.

If you have an old graphics card laying around, try to put it in and see if the problem goes away. Or use the onboard graphics.