[SOLVED] After swapping some components, PC does an abnormal BSOD when waking up from sleep ?

[cristianalejandro955]

Hello everyone! Apologies if some parts are hard to understand, English is not my first language, I'll be happy to clarify whatever's misunderstood.

For context, I already know the culprit is the OS because I was able to rule it out thanks to a secondary SSD, but I'm making this thread just to see if my main Windows 11 install is fixable, or if there's no other way to solve this but with a clean install, which would be heavily inconvenient for me at this time.

I had a RTX 2080S, and a Ryzen 7 5800X paired with 32GB of DDR4-3600 RAM in an ASUS ROG STRIX B550-E motherboard. Due to a few economic needs last year, I had to sell both the GPU and CPU I was using, and then I replaced them with a Ryzen 5 5600G.

At the moment I swapped these components out, I had two separate installs of Windows 10, on two separate SSDs. One is my main system which I'm using right now, and the other one is just a clean install with a few tools, more like a "sandbox" or "testing" system. As of today, they're both upgraded (not clean installed) to Windows 11, with no issues.

The day I installed the 5600G processor, the "BSOD when waking from sleep" problem began to happen in my main system, however it does not happen in my "sandbox" system. Note that both OS were running with the same 2080S/5800X combo before, but only my main system is showing this issue right now.

The day I swapped hardware I also removed old drivers with DDU, chipset drivers, and anything AMD related I could find on both systems, they're both running the same driver versions, however one has this issue and the other one doesn't.

I have resorted to using Hibernate in my main system, but end up missing the speedy boot times that Suspend gave me, and I find it weird that it works just fine in my other, empty system, which leads me to believe that the only way of solving this would be to clean install Windows 11 in my main SSD.

Here's a picture of the BSOD in question, so you can see why I call it "abnormal". The system hangs completely, and I have to force restart it.

The error code (consistently, doesn't change from reboot to reboot) reads "CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED", and it's important to note that the BSOD doesn't appear every time I try to wake up the PC from sleep, most of the times it's just a black screen with the same result, a completely frozen system that won't boot up. Keyboard lights up (but doesn't react to caps lock), motherboard RGB lights are cycling and the Dr.Debug LED shows the CPU temperature, but other than that, either there's a BSOD or a black screen and it doesn't boot up.

In my "sandbox" system, none of this happens, the PC boots up from sleep as normal.

Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance. I hope I didn't forget any important details. Honourable mention to @Colif since he may be able to help in this case, I found out about him while trying other steps mentioned in other threads here, to no avail, since I haven't been able to resolve my issue.

 

[Colif]

I was wondering how you got my name...

Can you follow option one on the following link - here - and then do this step below: Small memory dumps - Have Windows Create a Small Memory Dump (Minidump) on BSOD - that creates a file in c windows/minidump after the next BSOD

1. Open Windows File Explore
2. Navigate to C:\Windows\Minidump
3. Copy the mini-dump files out onto your Desktop
4. Do not use Winzip, use the built in facility in Windows
5. Select those files on your Desktop, right click them and choose 'Send to' - Compressed (zipped) folder
6. Upload the zip file to the Cloud (OneDrive, DropBox . . . etc.)
7. Then post a link here to the zip file, so we can take a look for you . . .

The day I swapped hardware I also removed old drivers with DDU, chipset drivers, and anything AMD related I could find on both systems, they're both running the same driver versions, however one has this issue and the other one doesn't.

why did you remove chipset drivers if you still have the same motherboard? Have you reinstalled them since?? they might help.

Critical process died is strictly a windows process error. A lot of BSOD can be drivers but that one can only be caused by windows itself.

this probably won't work but worth a try:
Search for powershell and open it as admin
copy/paste this command into window:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth

and press enter

Then type SFC /scannow

and press enter

Restart PC if SFC fixes any files as some fixes require a restart to be implemented

First command repairs the files SFC uses to clean files, and SFC fixes system files

SFC = System File Checker. First command runs DISM - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/what-is-dism?view=windows-11

given it updated to windows 11 without throwing any errors, you have to wonder. Updating to 11 should have replaced all of the processes. Could be the ssd itself.

What brand is the troublesome drive?

 

[cristianalejandro955]

why did you remove chipset drivers if you still have the same motherboard? Have you reinstalled them since?? they might help.

Hello and thanks for the quick reply! Sorry about this, what I meant to say is that I uninstalled the old ones and replaced them with the current updated ones.

So far, here's what happened with the steps you provided:

After reparing the WindowsImage, here are the results.

After running sfc scannow, here are the results

The minidump file, however, isn't being created, even after I've replicated the bluescreen twice now and my settings are configured right.

Before replicating the BSOD, I wiped the Event Viewer history and, after booting up post BSOD, I found this event as the reason why the dump wasn't being created, however the event right below that one says "Volume C: (\Device\HarddiskVolume2) is healthy. No action is needed."

given it updated to windows 11 without throwing any errors, you have to wonder. Updating to 11 should have replaced all of the processes. Could be the ssd itself.

What brand is the troublesome drive?

Both drives are Western Digital NVMe M.2 SSDs, model WD_BLACK SN750. One's 500GB (the one I'm currently using as main system) and the other one's 2TB (sandbox system is here, in a separate smaller 60GB partition)

Here are screenshots of CrystalDiskInfo for both drives
500GB
2TB

If it was the drive however, wouldn't it expose other symptoms? So far it has been working flawlessly if we talk about Windows functionality itself. No slow-downs, no random crashes, no corrupted files or anything in particular, just this one and only issue with the Windows sleep function, ever since I swapped CPU's and sold my GPU.

As I mention once again, I was using Sleep every single day before I swapped parts, the drive had no problems when I was using my 5800X/2080S combo.

Also important to mention, I did run a complete memtest86 test because I read somewhere else that the BSOD could mean something related to RAM, but the test completed successfully with no errors, I'm running 4 8GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro at 3600mhz CL16.

I hope you've seen this behavior with the minidump problem so I can actually create one and analyze it...

Thanks a lot

 

[Colif]

You could try running this on both drives, just to be sure:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/31759/~/download,-install,-test-drive-and-update-firmware-using-western-digital

its not making dumps?
Have you changed the size of the page file at all? That can be one reason
The drive the page file on could be the cause - that is another reason...

recreating the page file might fix it

1. go to settings/system/about
2. under Device specifications, click Advanced System settings
3. under Performance, click Settings
4. click Advanced tab
5. Under Virtual memory, click Change...
6. untick automatically manage paging file for all drives
7. click No paging file and click set next to it.
8. Click Okay,and then apply, and restart PC

On restart, follow all those steps until you get to automatically manage paging file for all drives and turn that back on again.

It might move the location, might let you save dumps.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

You could try running this on both drives, just to be sure:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/31759/~/download,-install,-test-drive-and-update-firmware-using-western-digital

its not making dumps?
Have you changed the size of the page file at all? That can be one reason
The drive the page file on could be the cause - that is another reason...

recreating the page file might fix it

1. go to settings/system/about
2. under Device specifications, click Advanced System settings
3. under Performance, click Settings
4. click Advanced tab
5. Under Virtual memory, click Change...
6. untick automatically manage paging file for all drives
7. click No paging file and click set next to it.
8. Click Okay,and then apply, and restart PC

On restart, follow all those steps until you get to automatically manage paging file for all drives and turn that back on again.

It might move the location, might let you save dumps.

Okay so, I installed the utility (I was familiar with it, just hadn't run it in a while), both SSDs had the latest firmware installed, and ran both a short and extended S.M.A.R.T test on my C: drive, which returned no errors.

I also did the steps to recreating the page file, the top box "automatically manage to all drives" was already ticked so I unticked it, selected no paging file, clicked "set" and then restarted, put it on automatic again then restarted.

It caught my attention that when it was set to No paging file it showed "Total paging file size for all drives: 0mb" but when I re-enabled the automatic setting it showed the exact same size it had before, which was 1792MB, it would seem like it didn't re-create it but rather used the previously existing one..?

Anyhow, after all the steps I recreated the exact same BSOD again, PC automatically restarted, and when I went to C:\Windows\ to check if the Minidump folder was there, I was met with the same result, no folder and event ID 161 on Event Viewer: "Dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation."

I'm at a loss here

 

[ubuysa]

In order to capture dump files all of the following must be correct...

• The page file must be on the same drive as your operating system
• Set page file to "system managed"
• Set system crash/recovery options to "Automatic memory dump"
• Overwrite any existing file box must be checked
• The dump file location must be %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP
• Windows Error Reporting (WER) system service should be set to MANUAL
• User account control must be running

In addition, the following can also prevent you seeing dumps...

• SSD drives with older firmware do not create dumps (update the drive firmware)
• Cleaner applications like Ccleaner delete dump files, so don't run them until you are fixed
• Bad RAM may prevent the data from being saved and written to a file on reboot, so if all else fails test your RAM

 

[Colif]

It caught my attention that when it was set to No paging file it showed "Total paging file size for all drives: 0mb" but when I re-enabled the automatic setting it showed the exact same size it had before, which was 1792MB, it would seem like it didn't re-create it but rather used the previously existing one..?

or it just created it as the same size as it thinks you need.

Ubuysa knows more about BSOD than I do so if we can get system to create dumps we might get somewhere.

• The page file must be on the same drive as your operating system
• Set page file to "system managed"
• Set system crash/recovery options to "Automatic memory dump"
• Overwrite any existing file box must be checked
• The dump file location must be %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP
• Windows Error Reporting (WER) system service should be set to MANUAL
• User account control must be running

1. we just recreated Page file, didn't change anything
2. Yes It is... and was.
3. I think he followed my instructions for minidumps which is a link for 10 but I think it still works in 11 - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5560-configure-windows-10-create-minidump-bsod.html
4. Where do you change this?
5. folder location for minidump is similar, just a different folder


Windows Error Reporting - To find this, right click start, choose run... type services.msc and press enter, scroll to bottom to find Windows Error Reporting, and check its startup type

UAC - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/user-help/you-need-to-enable-uac-windows

• SSD drives with older firmware do not create dumps (update the drive firmware)
• Cleaner applications like Ccleaner delete dump files, so don't run them until you are fixed
• Bad RAM may prevent the data from being saved and written to a file on reboot, so if all else fails test your RAM

1. WE just checked that
2 Good thinking, didn't think of CCleaner
3 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


Did you reset CMOS after swapping CPU? It can help sometimes, especially if the ram is still running the timings set for last CPU.

 

[ubuysa]

1. we just recreated Page file, didn't change anything
2. Yes It is... and was.
3. I think he followed my instructions for minidumps which is a link for 10 but I think it still works in 11 - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5560-configure-windows-10-create-minidump-bsod.html
4. Where do you change this?

Items 3, 4 and 5 are all in the same dialog (Start-up and Recovery)

5. folder location for minidump is similar, just a different folder

Minidumps are extracted from the full memory dump (in the paging file) and always go to C:\Windows\Minidump, this entry is where a kernel dump will be written. Sometimes we need kernel dumps so we need to know where that dump is.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

In order to capture dump files all of the following must be correct...

• The page file must be on the same drive as your operating system
• Set page file to "system managed"
• Set system crash/recovery options to "Automatic memory dump"
• Overwrite any existing file box must be checked
• The dump file location must be %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP
• Windows Error Reporting (WER) system service should be set to MANUAL
• User account control must be running

In addition, the following can also prevent you seeing dumps...

• SSD drives with older firmware do not create dumps (update the drive firmware)
• Cleaner applications like Ccleaner delete dump files, so don't run them until you are fixed
• Bad RAM may prevent the data from being saved and written to a file on reboot, so if all else fails test your RAM

In regards to the first 7 points, I checked that they were as you mentioned, the only thing I was missing was UAC which I had turned off before, but regardless it made no difference, the same event is happening in Event Viewer, where it's failing to create a dump for no stated reason, just... "Dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation.", a.k.a. Windows saying "it failed because it failed" lol

We checked the firmware on the SSD as Colif said too, I also don't run any cleaner apps, learned a while ago not to use apps like those, and I did mention in an earlier post that I had already run a full memtest86 that lasted for about 4 hours, 13 passes, no issues, but will give it a shot again and report back!

or it just created it as the same size as it thinks you need.

Ubuysa knows more about BSOD than I do so if we can get system to create dumps we might get somewhere.


1. we just recreated Page file, didn't change anything
2. Yes It is... and was.
3. I think he followed my instructions for minidumps which is a link for 10 but I think it still works in 11 - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5560-configure-windows-10-create-minidump-bsod.html
4. Where do you change this?
5. folder location for minidump is similar, just a different folder


Windows Error Reporting - To find this, right click start, choose run... type services.msc and press enter, scroll to bottom to find Windows Error Reporting, and check its startup type

UAC - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/user-help/you-need-to-enable-uac-windows


1. WE just checked that
2 Good thinking, didn't think of CCleaner
3 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


Did you reset CMOS after swapping CPU? It can help sometimes, especially if the ram is still running the timings set for last CPU.

I did reset the CMOS after swapping CPUs since I had an undervolt configured with the 5800X, and I figured it was best to wipe the CMOS completely when I changed hardware, with the 5600G I'm not running anything undervolted or overclocked, BIOS has stock settings right now.

As for the RAM test, correct me if I'm wrong, a quicker way to rule out if it's a RAM issue wouldn't be to just memtest86 a single 8gb stick in a single slot, and if that single stick doesn't throw any errors, boot up into Windows and see if Sleep works correctly that way?

 

[Colif]

As for the RAM test, correct me if I'm wrong, a quicker way to rule out if it's a RAM issue wouldn't be to just memtest86 a single 8gb stick in a single slot, and if that single stick doesn't throw any errors, boot up into Windows and see if Sleep works correctly that way?

that would tell you if that stick was okay, but if you have more than one sticks, it tells you nothing about those unless you still BSOD.

Can you share full specs of PC?

CPU - 5600G
Ram - 4 8GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro at 3600mhz CL16.
Are rams from same set?
Storage 2 x WD SSD (Checked)

What is everything else?

 

[cristianalejandro955]

that would tell you if that stick was okay, but if you have more than one sticks, it tells you nothing about those unless you still BSOD.

Can you share full specs of PC?

CPU - 5600G
Ram - 4 8GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro at 3600mhz CL16.
Are rams from same set?
Storage 2 x WD SSD (Checked)

What is everything else?

Yeah of course, I would still have to test the other three, but I was talking about isolating the issue and finding out the root cause.

The other specs as of today are:
PSU - Seasonic Vertex GX1000
MoBo - ASUS ROG STRIX B550-E
Cooler - Stock AMD
..and the rest are peripherals

The RAMs are two 16GB sets paired together.
I'm currently at work so I haven't tested further yet, will report once I get home.

 

[Colif]

how long you used both sets together for?
could be cause. Might have worked fine on old CPU but maybe not so well with APU since it uses ram for graphics vram

sticks in sets only tested to work with sticks in that set. Mixing two can lead to tiny enough differences that can cause BSOD.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

how long you used both sets together for?
could be cause. Might have worked fine on old CPU but maybe not so well with APU since it uses ram for graphics vram

They've been used for quite some time, I've had them since 2021, always running at stock D.O.C.P. profile

However let's not forget that I have a separate Windows installation in which the Sleep function works just fine, that alone should tell us something about the hardware being able to handle Sleep and Wakeup properly

 

[Colif]

What is on that sandbox system. How many programs? The difference could be drivers. Unless you went through them all with a program like Driver view (see spoiler) and confirmed they exact versions, they aren't the same. No two installs are exactly the same... unless they clones with no updates.

Spoiler

Download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.
Can you take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website and show link here - just curious what you have since we can't get any dumps.

It lists all drivers installed. It can't tell if they running or not though. There are other programs that can do that.

software tests of hardware can't see physical problems. its possible there is a physical fault of the ssd we can't see on reports.

Just trying to think of reasons.
Both drives ran perfectly fine on the previous build. All you did was remove GPU & replace CPU. Shame no tests for AMD CPU. Only one I have is Prime95 and it tends to run long and hot... up to 17 hours.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

What is on that sandbox system. How many programs? The difference could be drivers. Unless you went through them all with a program like Driver view (see spoiler) and confirmed they exact versions, they aren't the same. No two installs are exactly the same... unless they clones with no updates.

Spoiler

Download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.
Can you take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website and show link here - just curious what you have since we can't get any dumps.

It lists all drivers installed. It can't tell if they running or not though. There are other programs that can do that.

software tests of hardware can't see physical problems. its possible there is a physical fault of the ssd we can't see on reports.

Just trying to think of reasons.
Both drives ran perfectly fine on the previous build. All you did was remove GPU & replace CPU. Shame no tests for AMD CPU. Only one I have is Prime95 and it tends to run long and hot... up to 17 hours.

Okay guys so I got home and got to testing, here are the results of what I've done so far.

I ran memtest86 with only a single 8GB stick, no errors in about an hour of testing, all 4 passes done correctly.

However the issue persists, but in a slightly different way, this time the system doesn't even have time to show a BSOD or even try to even create a dump file, when I turn it on it crashes immediately and reboots from scratch as if I had pressed "Shutdown" instead of Sleep. Here's the event viewer after a faulty wakeup. Same codes regarding the dump file, but no visible BSOD.

UAC was on, paging file was enabled, the service in services.msc was set to Manual, but still there are no dump files on C:\Windows\Minidump, the folder hasn't even been created by the system.

The Sandbox system has nothing but the essentials to run, it's pretty barebones, here's how many programs I have installed over there.

As opposed to my main system which has way more installed programs, it is my main system after all, for a reason.

Here are the DriverView screenshots you asked for:

• Main system
• Sandbox

I have not been able to replicate a BSOD right now, even with the other 3 sticks installed again, it just crashes and restarts right away just like it does with a single stick. There's no BSOD showing, but the Event Viewer shows the exact same behavior: "Dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation."

I'm not really sure about what changed now, but I have seen this behavior before as I stated in the OP, the BSOD was a rather unusual event, the main issue was just a black screen and a system crash whenever trying to wake up from sleep.

most of the times it's just a black screen with the same result, a completely frozen system that won't boot up.

Any more ideas, guys? Maybe after taking a look at the drivers list you may see something that I don't.

By the way just to add to the tests, I have also tried disabling every non-Microsoft startup program and it makes no difference, I also don't even log into my account to try, I put the PC to sleep from the lockscreen itself without entering my password, with the same result anyway.

 

[ubuysa]

Can you please download and run the SysnativeBSODCollectionApp and upload the resulting zip file to a cloud service with a link to it here. The SysnativeBSODCollectionApp collects all the troubleshooting data we're likely to need. It DOES NOT collect any personally identifying data. It's used by several highly respected Windows help forums (including this one). I'm a senior BSOD analyst on the Sysnative forum where this tool came from, so I know it to be safe.

You can of course look at what's in the zip file before you upload it, most of the files are txt files. Please don't change or delete anything though. If you want a description of what each file contains you'll find that here.

 

[Colif]

it was setting off AV warnings a year or so ago. I used to get people to run it but I stopped. I won't pretend to have been using all of it.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

Can you please download and run the SysnativeBSODCollectionApp and upload the resulting zip file to a cloud service with a link to it here. The SysnativeBSODCollectionApp collects all the troubleshooting data we're likely to need. It DOES NOT collect any personally identifying data. It's used by several highly respected Windows help forums (including this one). I'm a senior BSOD analyst on the Sysnative forum where this tool came from, so I know it to be safe.

You can of course look at what's in the zip file before you upload it, most of the files are txt files. Please don't change or delete anything though. If you want a description of what each file contains you'll find that here.

Thank you, I did take a look before uploading, I see it really collects a lot of system data. It did skip a couple reports because it said "it took too long to generate" (it was the services and tracert reports), just as a heads up!

Here's the file, hope it helps.

 

[ubuysa]

Ah. Unfortunately there are indications that you may be, or have been, running pirate games and/or pirate copies of Acronis software. I appreciate that you're not asking for help with those products specifically but I am uncomfortable supporting any system that uses software that may not be fully legal.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

Ah. Unfortunately there are indications that you may be, or have been, running pirate games and/or pirate copies of Acronis software. I appreciate that you're not asking for help with those products specifically but I am uncomfortable supporting any system that uses software that may not be fully legal.

I understand your choice not to help in this case, thank you for your assistance so far, and I was also aware that this was going to be noticed, but as you requested, didn't delete a single thing from the logs.

I hope not everyone around here thinks the same way, though, by judging someone by the programs running in their system when the original issue had nothing to do with such programs or videogames, and how other people acquires their media shouldn't be a topic of discussion or something that should be brought up.

Otherwise, if the reason you're saying this is because you saw something in the logs that could indicate that the issue I'm having may be caused by one of these programs, it may change my perception of what you just said.

Spoiler

Being a woman and voting was once illegal, too. In America being black and free was once illegal too. Corporations outsourcing child labor overseas is considered legal, legality and morality are disparate ideas. A game being pirated isn't a lost sale, it's a sale that was never gonna happen to begin with.

Lots of things are irrationally illegal, plus I live in a third world country, brother. If you failed to notice, you're in a thread of a person who at some point had to sell their own PC hardware for economic difficulties.

 

[Colif]

Generally we don't assist people who have piracy concerns but what you could do is remove both the programs in question and wait for another BSOD and produce another report... Though I don't know if that would be enough for Ubuysa as we all volunteers here so its up to him.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

Generally we don't assist people who have piracy concerns but what you could do is remove both the programs in question and wait for another BSOD and produce another report... Though I don't know if that would be enough for Ubuysa as we all volunteers here so its up to him.

Absolutely, that's what I meant, I can just uninstall any piece of such software and produce a new zip file to keep troubleshooting, since the original issue had nothing to do with asking for help with pirated software to begin with.

 

[Colif]

if the OS itself was pirated I wouldn't be able to help. We have rules about it.

As I said, I can't answer for other people.

 

[cristianalejandro955]

if the OS itself was pirated I wouldn't be able to help. We have rules about it.

As I said, I can't answer for other people.

Last time I checked, the forum rules prohibited encouraging or promoting piracy, neither of which are happening here, but... okay?

Nothing to worry about in my case though, iirc my Windows install is activated with an original Windows 10 OEM key from and old laptop I purchased that had the sticker below it.

 

[Colif]

had any more BSOD?