Question Blue screen when installing device drivers after October 2019 update, Haswell platform

[Thatguythatexists]

Hi there, I'll start with my specs:

MSI Z97A Gaming 7 Motherboard (Z97 platform with USB 3.1 support)
Intel Core i5 4690k
Kingston HyperX Savage 2x8GB DDR3 1866
MSI Radeon R9 390 Gaming 8G
Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB (Boot drive)
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 2TB drive (the latest one with 256MB cache I believe; whatever model is currently on Amazon UK)
Corsair RM750x power supply

After installing the October 2019 update, my machine would sometimes freeze a few seconds after logging on, which could be remedied with a reboot. With some brief investigation I found AppXSvc to be the culprit and have disabled it. Then I went to update my drivers for my graphics card and got the same issue, and around this time the utility software for other devices stopped working, giving bad image errors (code 0xc000012f) pertaining to various DLLs. Reinstalling these proved to cause the same crash as the graphics drivers. After a failed system restore to try and remedy a failed driver install, the OS became unrecoverable and I repaired the installation with a recovery drive of the October 2019 build. Alas, my woes persisted, so I have again disabled AppXSvc and had to use device manager to install my graphics drivers, which only worked once; I now can't update them. After the November update, my peripheral drivers briefly worked again, although graphics drivers did not, and they have all since relapsed. All installations will occasionally blue screen shortly after freezing with a MACHINE CHECK EXCEPTION, except for my chipset drivers, which will promisingly get most of the way through before throwing a CLOCK WATCHDOG EXCEPTION. Both of these are pretty serious and initially led me to believe my hardware was dying, but I have run rigorous tests on my RAM, CPU and disks to verify they're operating correctly (even swapping my RAM modules over to the other channel), and my machine runs games very stably with the expected performance. It also doesn't explain why the issues only started after a Windows update. After seeing the CLOCK WATCHDOG EXCEPTION for the first time yesterday, I tried disabling HPET in the BIOS even though the OS isn't using it. Interestingly it almost made things worse, with the system refusing to boot about 1 in 3 times. I'm at my wit's end trying to solve this problem, and I really want it over and done with as I got a Logitech G29 wheel for Christmas and I can't even use it since I can't install the relevant version of Logitech Gaming Software. (I have version 5 installed for my old Driving Force GT; older and less complex driver utilities seem to work fine). Even if sticking with pre-October 2019 build for the rest of time was an acceptable solution, I can't as I reinstalled the OS with that build and thus lost the ability to roll back.

I have a couple more leads as to the ultimate culprit:

After a failed install, the LCore component of Logitech Gaming Software protested that there was an issue loading the Qt framework. After using the echo %PATH% command in cmd prompt I found that most of the programs referenced in the PATH list were the ones giving me trouble.

I checked Event Logs and found the occasional error with event code 35 under Kernel-Processor-Power, which indicates an incompatibility with motherboard or chipset firmware. I have the latest BIOS, and would love to update the chipset drivers, but as established they themselves chuck a hissy fit when I try.

Shortly after my OS reinstall, I tried to play Dota 2 and upon entering a match was met with a blue screen that referenced a DLL in my Killer Ethernet drivers, which was never seen again after reinstalling those. I've had problems with this driver causing memory leaks in the past and generally being a pain, so perhaps Realtek's incompetence knows no end and has once again ruined my day.

I'd be very grateful if someone can help me investigate this, even if the conclusion is that I'd better start saving for a new machine. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all!

 

[Thatguythatexists]

Bump gents? I'd add crash dumps but the only dumps are from the 3 crashes my network drivers caused, that no longer occur. WhoCrashed can't find any other info from them. I should add that I know it's not my graphics card, as I tried stuff on integrated graphics at one point to no avail. The fact that an OS update temporarily remedied the issue leads me to believe it can't possibly be a hardware issue. Perhaps that's just wishful thinking. But I've run Memtest86 for several nights and got nothing. Aida64 is the same. I've tested my drives every way I know how and it's not them either. The ONLY thing my system cannot do is install specific drivers. Other notable events: Shortly before the October update, and without any immediate side effects, I transferred from an old WD 1TB drive to a new Seagate 2TB for apps only. There was cloning involved of course, but no system files were cloned. The OS has been reinstalled since anyway. The drive letter stayed the same, although I can't be dead certain it's connected to the same SATA port. I also had a bad USB connector that was causing my keyboard to endlessly repeat volume and media controls before all this, but I can't remember which it was. To my knowledge USB doesn't send interrupts so that can't cause clock watchdog timeouts right?