Driver_IRQL_not_less_or_equal computer crash when installing driver for PCI-MXI-2

[jamierp]

We purchased a new Dell Optilplex 7010, installed XP and then installed NI-VXI 3.3.1.  After rebooting with a PCI-MXI-2 board installed, the found new hardware message was displayed.  Then after selecting to install the device driver, the computer crashed with the blue screen message "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL". 

We tried renaming nipalk.sys to nipalk.bak.  After rebooting, the system did not crash when trying to install the device drivers but a message was displayed that the correct hardware drivers could not be found.

We then updated the BIOS from A5 to A12 (A5 was the BIOS the machine came with and A12 is the latest BIOS).

After rebooting and then trying to install the drivers, the computer crashed with the same error as before.

Note - the Dell computer originally came with Windows 7.  The reason we installed XP was because we could not find a Windows 7 driver for PCI-MXI.  The driver NI-VXI 3.3.1 is supposed to work with Windows XP.

[Izzzzz]

Hello Jamierp,

Have you taken a look at the following driver.  It provides support for PCI-MXI-2 on Windows 7. Also was VXI 3.3.1 the only National Instruments driver you installed? Is your computer crashing in the process of installing this driver or after you reboot form an nstall? Does it crash constantly or only intermittingly i.e. can you bypass these blue screens in order to uninstall or reinstall software. I wanted to point you towards this article for force reinstalling the 3.3.1 driver in case there are other considerations (I am not aware of) for using Windows XP.

Regards,

Izzy O.

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

www.ni.com/support