[SOLVED] BSODs and Black Screens oh my. Computer won't write minidumps.

[MarCylinder]

I have been trying to debug a computer that I built for a friend and have not been able to solve the issue. The computer has only crashed while rendering video in Adobe Premier, playing Call of Duty (not any other video game), and when waking up from Sleep.

The computer will never write any minidumps regardless of minidump settings or paging file size. Whocrashed sees no signs of a crash. Event viewer does not show anything at the time of the crash. Driver Verifier is unable to trigger a crash. Peripherals were removed, Windows was reinstalled, and the most recent drivers were installed for all hardware. This did not resolve the issue. The RAM passes Memcheck and Windows memory diagnostic.

I attempted turning the "power mode" to balanced and disabling fast boot as well, to no avail. I checked the BIOS for other power settings related to sleep mode. I saw something on these forums about a C6 sleep state, or something of that nature, but no such setting exists on this motherboard.

The BSOD codes when waking the computer up from sleep are "Critical Process Died" and "System Service Exception". There is no BSOD when the computer crashes while Adobe Premier or Call of Duty are running. Note, other video games have not triggered the crash. BSODs never get past 0% after a crash, which is why there are no minidumps. I just can't figure out why it gets stuck at all.

I know I've gone through other debugging steps as well at this point, but have found nothing. At this point I'd assume some hardware driver is not playing nice, or there is an issue with NVMe or PSU. But it's really just a guess. I don't have spare parts laying around that I can swap with.

The computer specs are as follows:
Windows 10
AMD Ryzen 5 2600x
MSI B450 Tomahawk
Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16)
WD SN750 250GB M2
Seagate 2TB Barracuda
EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
EVGA 650GQ (650W, 80+ Gold)

Happy to provide more information if needed. Thanks in advance.

 

[Colif]

Try running this on WD drive - https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3&lang=en

I assume page file is in normal location and is auto managed by Windows? As that is 1 reason you may not get a minidump.

Driver verifer not causing a crash could mean its hardware. If its the drive itself causing the crash it likely explains why it won't go past 0%

Can you download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html
All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any
When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

Now its up to you, you can look through the drivers and try to find old drivers, or you can take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website and show link here

All I would do is look at driver versions (or dates if you lucky to have any) to see what might have newer versions.

Critical process died isn't specific enough, it can be a number of different WIndows files, that if any of them crash, windows has to follow. I never used to see it and then in last few months its been everywhere, I wouldn't mind if it went away again. Does it happen to mention a file name when it crashes?

 

[MarCylinder]

Wow, thank you very much for taking the time to help me!

Try running this on WD drive - https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3&lang=en

The drive passed the extended test.

I assume page file is in normal location and is auto managed by Windows? As that is 1 reason you may not get a minidump.

This was a weird one. I moved the page file to the secondary drive and set the size to 33GB (32GB of RAM). Rebooted after making the change. All was well. Got the computer to BSOD, and ran whocrashed. It said the computer was not set up to crete complete minidumps. Odd. because that wasn't the case 10 minutes ago. Went into the settings to change it to create complete minidumps, and got hit with an error. "your current paging file is either disabled or less than 32975 MB." I click okay and it takes me to the page file settings where the page file is.... 33,0000 MB. Couldn't get it to work.

or you can take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

Screenshot here:

https://imgur.com/a/3Xj9545

View: https://imgur.com/a/3Xj9545

Does it happen to mention a file name when it crashes?

That would be too easy! No file name. Just the useless stop code.

 

[Colif]

did you look in the minidump folder on the secondary drive? It could be whocrashed only looks in the default location

At what stage did you move the page file? Before or after you started getting errors?

had you set it up to create mini dumps before you got the error about the full dump not being set up?
can you show me a screenshot of your page file settings?

unless you find yourself using all your ram on a regular basis, you probably don't need 33gb of page file size but until it actually records a dump, just leave it as is.

see if this helps as since all the files that cause critical process died are windows files, it might be one is corrupt
right click start button
choose powershell (admin)
type SFC /scannow and press enter
once its completed, copy/paste this command into same window:
Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth and press enter
SFC fixes system files, second command cleans image files, re run SFC if it failed to fix all files and restart PC

One of these days a driver list will show me more than 2 dates lol.
not a lot of choices, mostly Nvidia and AMD chipset drivers.
One realtek LAN driver, not that old but there is a newer one here - https://www.realtek.com/en/componen...0-1000m-gigabit-ethernet-pci-express-software

it could be the Nvidia drivers, although i sometimes feel like its a trap to suggest them, they haven't been the most reliable in the last year. Since the errors happen during video processing, its always a possibility.
try running DDU and try older drivers direct from Nvidia or run windows update and allow windows to install slightly older Nvidia drivers that are more stable
https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...n-install-of-your-video-card-drivers.2402269/

 

[MarCylinder]

Okay, I'm going to answer these out of order. Thank you again for sticking with me.

see if this helps as since all the files that cause critical process died are windows files, it might be one is corrupt

I did this and it continued to crash. I also updated the drivers after this, using DDU. Still crashed.

At what stage did you move the page file? Before or after you started getting errors?

After I read your response to this thread! So after the errors, I guess.

did you look in the minidump folder on the secondary drive? It could be whocrashed only looks in the default location

Good news! I got a minidump. Whocrashed says...

https://imgur.com/a/Cdz69GZ

View: https://imgur.com/a/Cdz69GZ

 

[Colif]

go to c:/windows/minidump
copy the minidump files to another folder
upload copies from new folder to a file sharing website.
show the link here

when i asked about if page file was on C, I should have explained more. Its not having it on c that causes you not to get dumps, its if its on another drive. But that is the past now.

 

[MarCylinder]

show the link here

Here you are sir!
https://www63.zippyshare.com/v/TiEDJvC6/file.html

 

[gardenman]

Hi, I ran the dump file through the debugger and got the following information: https://pastebin.com/7Ekepnp0

File information:	072720-193906-01.dmp (Jul 27 2020 - 10:56:22)
Bugcheck:	CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (EF)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: services.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 01 Min(s), and 32 Sec(s)

Possible Motherboard page: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/b450-tomahawk
There is a BIOS update available for your system. You are using version 1.7. Wait for additional information before deciding to update or not. Important: Verify that I have linked to the correct motherboard. Updating your BIOS can be risky. Never try it when you might lose power (lightning storms, recent power outages, etc).

This information can be used by others to help you. Someone else will post with more information. Please wait for additional answers. Good luck.

 

[MarCylinder]

For anyone that finds this thread in the future, updating the BIOS worked.