[MSNwar]

Would appreciate any advice anyone may have.

StarCraft BroodWar crashes my PC. I replaced almost all the hardware to isolate the problem (see the specs below) and did two clean installations of WinXP PRO (Retail) and updated eveything from the MS Windows Update site. The machine crashes when I am "online and offline" playing StarCraft. It only crashes when I play StarCraft. My internet connection is good as I checked with my ISP and neighbors who use the same ISP.

Part of my the error messages I am getting is USBPORT.SYS (see below). The only USB devices I have are the modem and the optical mouse. I removed the mouse and still have crashes. I defrag regularly with Diskeeper.

Blue Screen reads:
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
USBPORT.SYS
ADDRESS F96CF24A BASE AT F96C8000 DATE STAMP 3B7d68b

C:WINDOWSMinidump/Mini052502-1.dmp
C:DOCUME~1MSNwarLOCALS-1TempWER1.tmp.dir001sysdata.xml

Dumping physical memory to disk ...

My Specs are:
PII-450 on an ASUS P2B 440BX Year 1999 (used heavily by me)
256 MB SD-RAM (NEW)
IBM 60 G 7200 Hard drive (NEW)
External USB Modem: Telekom Eumex 504PC USB
Gainward 64 MB Video Card (NEW)

I was running a USB Mouse but removed it and replaced it with a PS/2 Mouse thinking I had a USB problem, but the machine still crashes.

MSNwar - The FatMan
My name is MSNwar and I am a MSFN Junkie.

[Aaron]

probably the USB modem causing the crashing, try routing your internet connection from another PC to yours via NAT/ICS software, and play starcraft again, so you don't have to use the USB Modem on your PC.

btw, no matter how much you defrag or not, it doesn't cause PC problems or fix them for that matter.

[Flash]

I get that blue screen now and then, if i leave my comp on for alot with KaZaA.

Yeah, sounds to me as a USB modem. Coulad also be the hardware, you got the minumin specs handy?

[FthrJACK]

actually if your drive is badly defragged you might find you cant surf the internet as pages wont load, the tcp icp protocol gets blocked, ive noticed other quirks of a very badly defragged drive also, on different machines too.

[MSNwar]

After replacing the "USB modem" with a new "PCI modem" StarCraft still crashes. The new error message is:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Question is what is IRQ "L" ?
I did not know there exsist "L" ?

So far I have replaced the RAM, Video Card, Hard Drive, Power Supply, and now a new modem. As mentioned before, I have reformatted the Hard Drive twice and preformed clean installations of WInXP Pro Retail Edition. The only thing I have not replaced are the motherboard and CPU. I have updated all drivers for hardware and I have all the necessary Windows Updates. I have even taken all USB devices off this system.

Helpless

MSNwar - The FatMan
My name is MSNwar and I am a MSFN Junkie.

[MSNwar]

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article (Q293077) refers to the error message I have been receiving "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ". The bottom line is a driver issue according to the KBA. I still cannot pin point the specific driver, software and/or hardware, but I suspect it is actually a combination of driver and memory related issues.

My next step is to replace the motherboard and CPU. I will also switch from SD-RAM to DDR. I am looking at the MSI 6380 KT3 Ultra ARU or the ASUS equivalent. The AMD XP 2000 and 2100 look pretty good right now. Unfortunately, the MSI board only has 3 RAM slots and supports 3 GB of RAM. I only want 1 GB of RAM and the 3 slot limitation leaves configuration issues. I have to do more research. In the past I have sided with Intel and ASUS, so I feel like I am in unchartered waters. Kind of like this thread.

MSNwar - The FatMan
My name is MSNwar and I am an MSFN Junkie.

P.S.
Odd how this only happens when playing StarCraft BroodWar.
Maybe this is a hardware issue and not a game issue?
Maybe I posted this in the wrong section?

[Flash]

If it dont happen with ither games then i would say it may be a compatibility program within the game and your comp, weird though...