BSOD

DevPete

DevPete

DevPete

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Joined
20 May 2012
Posts
55
My recent upgrade is getting a BSOD, sometimes before login, and sometimes soon after login.

Everything had been working fine. I had even run a game briefly to see how it performed.

I installed the GIGABYTE Control Center and I think that updated a load of drivers. I'm wondering what I should do as I've probably got the latest drivers. My thoughts are:

1. Update the BIOS - could the latest drivers be incompatible with the older BIOS? This may muddy the waters though as the old BIOS was stable before the software changes.
2. Try safe mode and uninstall drivers. I could hit the same problem if I update the drivers in future though.
3. Something else?

Any ideas what I should try first?

I've been running the main hardware for over 2 years without a single BSOD, so I know those are reliable. Changes I've made are:
New PSU (quality Seasonic, same model but upgraded from 650W to 750W)
New GPU (Gigabyte 1660 Super -> Saphire 7900XT)
New SSD (WD Gen4 1TB -> 2TB)
2 SATA SSD's (taken from another machine)
Enabled Secure boot (despite Windows having been installed previously it wouldn't install as I needed to enable it)
Clean installed Windows 11

Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO AC
CPU Ryzen 3950X
Memory: DDR4 32GB
 
Have you tried checking event viewer? (Press windows key, type "eventvwr", press enter, expand system logs). Check around the time of the BSODs to see if there's anything recorded like GPU driver recovery, or errors communicating with hard drives (could be a loose cable).
 
One of them was irql-not-less-or-equal
learn.microsoft.com

Bug check 0xA IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL - Windows drivers

The IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL bug check has a value of 0x0000000A.
learn.microsoft.com

I did also see an "error" (not Critical) that says "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort1". The source is 'stornvme'. My boot drive is nvme but the SATA drives aren't, so I'm thinking that it's the boot drive, which doesn't have a cable . Shortly after this error is one for volmgr and then the Critical one, all within 1 or 2s.

I could try going into safemode and removing the NVME driver as a starting point.
 
I'm not sure if that would make your system unbootable (removing the driver).

Is your NVME drive the "New SSD (WD Gen4 1TB -> 2TB)"? If it's a new component then that might be the source of the issues. If you're certain the problem only started occurring after you updated drivers then perhaps try different drivers for it. Perhaps also make sure it's seated on the motherboard correctly also.

WD also has a windows utility called "dashboard" which can check the firmware of the drive is up to date and that the drive is healthy. You might consider installing that.
 
Pulseammo said:
I'm not sure if that would make your system unbootable (removing the driver).

Is your NVME drive the "New SSD (WD Gen4 1TB -> 2TB)"? If it's a new component then that might be the source of the issues. If you're certain the problem only started occurring after you updated drivers then perhaps try different drivers for it. Perhaps also make sure it's seated on the motherboard correctly also.

WD also has a windows utility called "dashboard" which can check the firmware of the drive is up to date and that the drive is healthy. You might consider installing that.
Click to expand...
I've been doing some Googling and it looks like I'm getting somewhere. My new drive is a 2T WD SN850X. The old drive was a 1T WD SN850 (no X). It seems that this 'X' could be causing the problem.

I won't be able to update any drivers from normal Windows, I was very lucky to get to the event viewer and take a quick photo. I could try Safe Mode though.

I'm doing some reading and trying to work out how this should be fixed and whether it can be done without a stable Windows.
 
Oh I didn't realise it was so bad. I'd certainly try to boot safe mode in that case since it might only load default drivers there.
 
I decided that safe mode could be a bit risky, so I'm going to do a clean install of Windows. I think a clean install should work well enough to update the firmware.

I tried installing Windows 11 and it tells me the machine doesn't meet the requirements, even though it is already installed (without doing anything special). I won't tell me why it doesn't meet the requirements. I probably need to download the Windows 10 installer and install that first ‍♂️. This is really bad IMO. The installer should say what the problem is without having to install a different version of Windows.

I noticed that CSM had turned itself back on, which was strange, but even after enabling secure boot, I still had the same error. I am wondering whether it's the monitor as I installed it with a different monitor before. It is at a weird resolution, so I don't know whether Windows thinks it doesn't meet the requirements. They doesn't even seem to document the requirements detection though, so they leave us completely in the dark

I should hopefully get somewhere eventually
 
I'd just be trying to boot safe mode anyway, not to flash the firmware of the drive, but just to see if it loads different drivers and makes the system stable while you're in safe mode.

It does sound more like you have a driver issue than a firmware issue, I only brought up the dashboard software having that feature so you were aware of it (along with it's other diagnostic features).

I'm sorry I can't help with the windows 11 installation issues, I'm still on windows 10... since my PC doesn't meet the requirements :D.
 
It looks like there was a firmware fix for this in March, so I'm hoping that the drive was shipped with an older version. This following page lists the firmware updates and mentioned the RaidPort error. It's for the 1TB drive, but I'm guessing that the 2TB drive would have the same fix.
www.techpowerup.com

FirmWare Updates - for WD Black and Samsung

In 2022 i buyed a 1TB WD Black SN850 for a 85 pounds, and now this year 2023 i buyed a 1TB WD Black SN850X for a 65 pounds, brand new. Is a so cheap from Ebay. WD Black SN850 1TB - FirmWare Updates 611100WD - 01.2021 612100WD - 03.2021 613000WD - 05.2021 613200WD - 07.2021 614300WD - 09.2021...
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com

If I can get to the Dashboard then I can at least see whether it's on the latest firmware. It's a shame that WD haven't documented this and given clear steps to fix it :(
 
I managed to install Windows 11 in the end. I realised that TPM had disabled itself in the BIOS :confused:

The SSD firmware was old, so I updated it to the latest one, which is the one that was reported to have the fix (620331WD). I saw one error in the event viewer before the update but none after the update, so it looks like that error has been fixed.

One thing that is a little strange is that an update seemed to have caused a blue screen as a result of this error. Some users report blue screens but others seem to say there's just an error in the logs.

I've decided to updated my GPU driver but none of the others as I believe it is stable now. It'll take some time to rebuild my confidence though :(
 
Always the way with intermittent faults, they are the most annoying, but it seems like it was doing it quite readily before?

Good luck in any event!
 
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