Question Laptop blue screen upon installing Windows 11 on new Samsung 980 SSD ?

[Qeem]

Hi,

Laptop model: Asus FX505DT

Link to my laptop:

ASUS TUF Gaming FX505DT | Laptops | ASUS United Kingdom - Specifications

Unite the latest AMD Ryzen™ processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX™ graphics on an up to 144Hz IPS-level NanoEdge display with the ASUS TUF Gaming FX505 laptop, which delivers immersive, high-performance gaming at an affordable price.

www.asus.com

I recently bought a Samsung 980 Pro M.2 SSD:
https://www.pricerunner.dk/pl/36-32...-Pro-Series-MZ-V8P2T0BW-2TB-Sammenlign-Priser

When installing Windows 11 from an external drive on to my new 980, it freezes and after a minute blue screens (DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION) upon connecting to wifi in the setup-menu.
As far as I understand, the product is defective, but I've also been told it may not be compatible with my motherboard.

The 980 did work for a total of about 2 hours, but when I went to turn on the laptop again, it constantly went into recovery-mode. I still have my original M.2 SSD of 237GB, and it works fine, so I know it's not the laptop's M.2 slot that is causing the issue.

The 980 does show up in BIOS when it's installed in the M.2 NVMe slot.
I have formatted and attempted reinstalling windows a couple of times, where I run into the same issue of blue screening during setup.

- qeem

 

[Colif]

Sounds like you should rma that ssd and get a new one from Samsung as its probably just bad.

one thought is you could check the ram as most of the time I see BSOD during install its the ram

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

another thought is try another USB drive, it might be the source.

 

[Qeem]

Thanks for the response,

I did try two different USB-drives with a clean windows install, and that didn't seem to solve it.

But I've managed to get windows running on the correct SSD now, and I did so by bypassing the "let's get you connected to a network" - and a couple of other steps involving completely clearing the disks and removing all partitions (I also have a 1tb SATA, that had windows on it).

When I finally reached the start menu, I went to look for outdated drivers, and it turns out there were a ton of outdated drivers. After updating those I did a sfc /scannow in CMD, and it found some corrupted files that seemingly were fixed.

Memtest86 came back with 0 errors.

But the problem I do have now, is that when I connect to my home wifi (I have both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) it immediately blue screens (Watchdog error again) even when using the wrong password. But I am able to use both ethernet through cable and mobile hotspot from a phone connected to the home wifi.

Minidump files:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fxwp...ey=4qam450y8gmvjm2o3apz2b42x&st=iqz4438r&dl=0

This I cannot wrap my head around at all.

 

[Qeem]

I've never worked with checking a hash before. I can't seem to find my "Win11 ISO", but I understand I have to use the "Get-FileHash"-command in PowerShell. I just don't know where to direct this command, and all tutorials I'm finding say to download the ISO from the official Microsoft site, but if I am checking the Win11 ISO on my computer, then it makes no sense for me to download a new ISO and check that, right?

I'm a complete noob here, but when I first did download Windows 11 onto a USB-drive, I used the "Create Windows 11 Installation Media" from:
https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11

My Windows 11 version is 23H2 with the build 22631.3527, which I couldn't find under your link:
https://files.rg-adguard.net/version/f0bd8307-d897-ef77-dbd6-216fefbe94c5

 

[baboma]

>I did try two different USB-drives with a clean windows install, and that didn't seem to solve it.

Looks like you covered the "corrupt install media" possibility.

>But I've managed to get windows running on the correct SSD now, and I did so by bypassing the "let's get you connected to a network" - and a couple of other steps involving completely clearing the disks and removing all partitions (I also have a 1tb SATA, that had windows on it).

When availing of online help, clear communication is important. If you can't convey clearly, you're wasting everybody's time. GIGO.

What is "correct SSD"?

If SSD is your boot drive, why is Windows also on the SATA?

>When I finally reached the start menu, I went to look for outdated drivers, and it turns out there were a ton of outdated drivers.

If you did clean install as said above, why are there "outdated drivers" in the Win install?

Where are corrupted files coming from? Are they system files? Is your Windows install corrupted?

Understand that free help also means low motivation to help. Few are willing to spend the effort of the 20-questions routine to help you, present company including.

 

[Qeem]

>What is "correct SSD"?
The Samsung 980 Pro M.2 SSD

>If SSD is your boot drive, why is Windows also on the SATA?
I installed windows on the SATA to check if something was wrong with my external drive, since I didn't know bypassing the "Let's get you connected to a network" was a possiblity then. I did get windows up and running with no issues on the SATA, but I just left the Windows installation on there when going back to attempting the install on the 980 SSD.

>If you did clean install as said above, why are there "outdated drivers" in the Win install?
That's why I mentioned it. Didn't make any sense to me, especially because I'm very alert when it comes to updating drivers, and I had never been notified of any outdated drivers prior to starting this whole installing a new SSD with a fresh Windows install -process.

>Where are corrupted files coming from? Are they system files? Is your Windows install corrupted?
I really don't know, I haven't seen them, I've only been told by CMD after doing the "/sfc scannow", and then CMD reporting that they were "fixed" - whatever that means. The Windows install being corrupted seems unlikely with all the re-installations I've done.

I've reinstalled windows again and then left my pc for 3 hours to go make dinner. When I came back, the pc was in sleep-mode, and when it woke, I couldn't interact with the login-screen. Everything was frozen except my mouse. I held the power button for 10 sec to shut it off, and when I turned it back on, it started doing a normal windows update, the "Don't turn your computer off"-update. My brother says this isn't abnormal for a clean install to do, since there are no drivers and the pc needs to get them. - And I suppose this explains why there were "outdated drivers" after the previous Win install too. Unless that is not supposed to happen.

Anyhow. Same issue is apparent on this new installation of Win11. Connecting to home wifi gives an immediate BSOD (DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION), yet using ethernet and connecting to a mobile hotspot gives no issues even after hours. I'd also like to note, this is the only thing that has caused a BSOD so far. I'm using the laptop right now with windows running on the 980 SSD, and I'm having no perfomance issues.

>Understand that free help also means low motivation to help. Few are willing to spend the effort of the 20-questions routine to help you, present company including.
I completely understand, and I am very appreciative of the help I've recieved so far. I will try to be as clear as possible.

 

[Qeem]

I believe I might have fixed it - or at least found a workaround.

Found this gem on youtube:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRUUs3K4Mkk


My settings were different from the video, but I'll try to document what I did to solve it, in case other people come by with a similar issue:

1. I opened my device manager and went to "Network adapter" (translated from danish, so it may not be the exact name).

2. Under the "advanced" tab, I selected "Wireless mode" and changed its value to "IEEE 802.11a"

Thanks a lot to Colif and baboma for the responses!

EDIT: I've managed to pin it down to be a lot more precise. See attached screenshot. If anyone has suggestions on why this is happening, I'd still like to hear them.

https://imgur.com/a/nnM9BoC

View: https://imgur.com/a/nnM9BoC

 

[Qeem]

>The workaround indicates your issue is likely the wifi driver. Since you have not specifically mentioned installing drivers specific to the laptop model, I assume you're using Windows drivers that were auto-installed during the Windows Update process.

They were the auto-installed drivers, so I imagine that is the issue.

>The workaround is suboptimal, as 802.11a throughput will be limited to mid-20Mb/s real-world speed, despite being on 5GHz spectrum. Moreover, it may have a spillover effect to slowing down other devices using same channel.

At school I wont really be needing more than 20Mb/s, and since I've got ethernet at home, I'm probably just gonna let it be for now, but I'm glad it's been figured out at least.

>Edit: Next troubleshooting step, assuming issue unresolvable, is to plug your old SSD back in, and ascertain that issue (BSOD, wifi connection, etc) does not appear. This is your backstop.

That was the first troubleshooting I did, and the old SSD did work completely fine every time I plugged it back in. - Although I never reset it and tried a fresh install.