- Jun 6, 2020
- 3
- 0
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Hello World! Having an AMD graphics driver issue, far as I can tell. Here's the lowdown; sorry it's going to be a bit "stream of consciousness," not real sure how else to lay it out.
So with everything going on, I decided to build my kids some inexpensive, entry computers that would have a little room to grow as they do. Worked it out both inexpensive, but also significantly exceeding any game, school app, etc requirements for what they actually use; balanced my purchase with price, reviews, and specs. Here's the hardware, identical for both:
AMD Ryzen 3 3200G (Vega 8 integrated graphics)
ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 AM4
Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000)
WD Blue 3D NAND 250GB Internal PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280
EVGA 500 W1 100-W1-0500-KR 80+
ROSEWILL Micro ATX Mini Tower
Easy build, generally runs great! Amazing little $350 computers! Now the problems and steps taken..
After a day or so, got a BSOD on one computer, "Thread_Stuck_In_Device_Driver" error. Ended up occurring consistently twice per day. The other computer followed suit, about once per day. BlueScreenView highlights in red, "Amdkmgag.sys" and "dxknrl.sys" on both computers. No repeatable steps to note; crash has occurred looking at the desktop, in Roblox, in Minecraft Bedrock, with Discord open, with Discord closed, etc.
I did some cycles of checking for updates, restarting, checking for updates, restarting, etc, as I've seen new Windows updates appear after restarts like that. AMD Adrenaline 2020 is installed, up to date, but that's also an oddity; I couldn't get both computers to the same driver version/date. They were 2 release days apart, and a couple minor version numbers apart, as well, but both computers stating up to date, latest drivers.
After several days of no new updates and consistent crashing, I used that Driver Uninstaller tool touted around here, followed the directions, stripped the drivers out, reinstalled. Tried that a couple times, no dice. BSOD continued same as before; once per day for one tower, twice per day for the other.
Gave it a couple more days, no change. Switched Adrenaline to "Optional" drivers; both computers updated to the same version, finally! I think this improved things, seems to have a slightly lower occurrence rate, but still about the same. Also went and downloaded the DirectX installer from Microsoft to make sure I had the latest, as "dxkernal.sys" was the other red highlighted file in Blue Screen Viewer.
Next, I downloaded FurMark, Uniengine, Prime95, and OpenHardwareMonitor. Ran 'em each separately, performance was pretty much exactly what you would expect, no surprises. After 10 minutes of Prime95, all the temperatures had stabilized on both computers to within 2 degrees of each other. Let it run for a bit, nothing was changing, other than a couple of computers running all out, something they never do in normal use, and all temperatures were well within what the Internet says are safe operating temperatures, so I shut it down. (I just came across a note a few minutes ago that Prime95 should be left running for 3 hours?? Maybe 20 minutes wasn't enough to tell?) BSOD's continued. Memtest came back fine several times, as well.
It was at this point it occurred to me (by way of Google) that I hadn't checked the audio driver version, or motherboard BIOS. Downloaded the utilities; BIOS up to date, but audio driver was not. Ran the updates. No more BSOD! That's not much of an improvement, however...
Now, instead of BSOD with log outputs, I'm getting a frozen screen. Still once per day on the one computer, but now 3-4 times a day on the other. No rhyme nor reason when it occurs, how it occurs, it just occurs. Luckily, M.2, and the case has a reset button. Tap that, and the kids are back up and running in about 10 seconds, flat. Incredible. When the freeze occurs, the computer doesn't go to sleep. This is how I catch it sometimes; the kids are off playing, I look over and see that one computer is not sleeping. Turn the screen on, and see the time is quite wrong, no mouse movement, etc.
Googling indicated that control-shift-Windows-B would reset the graphics drivers, so I thought cool, this could be a quicker fix than a reboot, right? Unsure. It worked as expected on my computer, but the first time I tested it on the more problematic computer when operating normally, it caused the screen freeze problem. Still have sound, Discord calls still work; it's just the image on the screen that's frozen. This is what prompted me to post this.
I just tried it again on both computers, and it does the correct screen flicker and continues working behavior, as expected, no freeze. Maybe it was a one time freeze? It hasn't frozen again to try the hotkey thing for real, yet.
I'm at a bit of a loss on how to continue. Windows is fully up to date, all drivers are fully up to date. I bought 2 sets of identical hardware at the same time, assembled one after the other, installed from the same Win10 install flash drive that I created just before building them. Temperatures stay stable, even when stressed to the max. No repeatable behavior to cause the issue. I've not had a BSOD on either computer since updating the realtec audio drivers 3 days ago, but now I'm getting frozen screens, instead. I built these computer 2 weeks ago today, and they've been fantastic for the kids, other that the freezes of course.
Apps installed on both when the BSOD first started:
Minecraft Bedrock (win10 app)
Roblox (win10 app)
Discord
Charter Security Suite (... that's going to be the issue, isn't it? lol)
Since then, we've installed Steam, and a few games, such as Terraria, Scrap Mechanic, Slime Rancher, and the kiddos have tried out about a dozen free win10 store apps. None of this has changed the occurrence of first BSOD and now screen freezes. Terraria is really the only Steam game that they've played much of; Scrap Mechanic runs great, but I suspect it'll bog down with too much building, and they've lost interest anyway; my daughter plays Slime Rancher occasionally, but at the moment they're almost exclusively used for Minecraft, Roblox, and Discord calls.
Any thoughts, suggestions? Thanks!
Edit: corrected the BSOD error message
So with everything going on, I decided to build my kids some inexpensive, entry computers that would have a little room to grow as they do. Worked it out both inexpensive, but also significantly exceeding any game, school app, etc requirements for what they actually use; balanced my purchase with price, reviews, and specs. Here's the hardware, identical for both:
AMD Ryzen 3 3200G (Vega 8 integrated graphics)
ASRock B450M-HDV R4.0 AM4
Team T-FORCE VULCAN Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000)
WD Blue 3D NAND 250GB Internal PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, M.2 2280
EVGA 500 W1 100-W1-0500-KR 80+
ROSEWILL Micro ATX Mini Tower
Easy build, generally runs great! Amazing little $350 computers! Now the problems and steps taken..
After a day or so, got a BSOD on one computer, "Thread_Stuck_In_Device_Driver" error. Ended up occurring consistently twice per day. The other computer followed suit, about once per day. BlueScreenView highlights in red, "Amdkmgag.sys" and "dxknrl.sys" on both computers. No repeatable steps to note; crash has occurred looking at the desktop, in Roblox, in Minecraft Bedrock, with Discord open, with Discord closed, etc.
I did some cycles of checking for updates, restarting, checking for updates, restarting, etc, as I've seen new Windows updates appear after restarts like that. AMD Adrenaline 2020 is installed, up to date, but that's also an oddity; I couldn't get both computers to the same driver version/date. They were 2 release days apart, and a couple minor version numbers apart, as well, but both computers stating up to date, latest drivers.
After several days of no new updates and consistent crashing, I used that Driver Uninstaller tool touted around here, followed the directions, stripped the drivers out, reinstalled. Tried that a couple times, no dice. BSOD continued same as before; once per day for one tower, twice per day for the other.
Gave it a couple more days, no change. Switched Adrenaline to "Optional" drivers; both computers updated to the same version, finally! I think this improved things, seems to have a slightly lower occurrence rate, but still about the same. Also went and downloaded the DirectX installer from Microsoft to make sure I had the latest, as "dxkernal.sys" was the other red highlighted file in Blue Screen Viewer.
Next, I downloaded FurMark, Uniengine, Prime95, and OpenHardwareMonitor. Ran 'em each separately, performance was pretty much exactly what you would expect, no surprises. After 10 minutes of Prime95, all the temperatures had stabilized on both computers to within 2 degrees of each other. Let it run for a bit, nothing was changing, other than a couple of computers running all out, something they never do in normal use, and all temperatures were well within what the Internet says are safe operating temperatures, so I shut it down. (I just came across a note a few minutes ago that Prime95 should be left running for 3 hours?? Maybe 20 minutes wasn't enough to tell?) BSOD's continued. Memtest came back fine several times, as well.
It was at this point it occurred to me (by way of Google) that I hadn't checked the audio driver version, or motherboard BIOS. Downloaded the utilities; BIOS up to date, but audio driver was not. Ran the updates. No more BSOD! That's not much of an improvement, however...
Now, instead of BSOD with log outputs, I'm getting a frozen screen. Still once per day on the one computer, but now 3-4 times a day on the other. No rhyme nor reason when it occurs, how it occurs, it just occurs. Luckily, M.2, and the case has a reset button. Tap that, and the kids are back up and running in about 10 seconds, flat. Incredible. When the freeze occurs, the computer doesn't go to sleep. This is how I catch it sometimes; the kids are off playing, I look over and see that one computer is not sleeping. Turn the screen on, and see the time is quite wrong, no mouse movement, etc.
Googling indicated that control-shift-Windows-B would reset the graphics drivers, so I thought cool, this could be a quicker fix than a reboot, right? Unsure. It worked as expected on my computer, but the first time I tested it on the more problematic computer when operating normally, it caused the screen freeze problem. Still have sound, Discord calls still work; it's just the image on the screen that's frozen. This is what prompted me to post this.
I just tried it again on both computers, and it does the correct screen flicker and continues working behavior, as expected, no freeze. Maybe it was a one time freeze? It hasn't frozen again to try the hotkey thing for real, yet.
I'm at a bit of a loss on how to continue. Windows is fully up to date, all drivers are fully up to date. I bought 2 sets of identical hardware at the same time, assembled one after the other, installed from the same Win10 install flash drive that I created just before building them. Temperatures stay stable, even when stressed to the max. No repeatable behavior to cause the issue. I've not had a BSOD on either computer since updating the realtec audio drivers 3 days ago, but now I'm getting frozen screens, instead. I built these computer 2 weeks ago today, and they've been fantastic for the kids, other that the freezes of course.
Apps installed on both when the BSOD first started:
Minecraft Bedrock (win10 app)
Roblox (win10 app)
Discord
Charter Security Suite (... that's going to be the issue, isn't it? lol)
Since then, we've installed Steam, and a few games, such as Terraria, Scrap Mechanic, Slime Rancher, and the kiddos have tried out about a dozen free win10 store apps. None of this has changed the occurrence of first BSOD and now screen freezes. Terraria is really the only Steam game that they've played much of; Scrap Mechanic runs great, but I suspect it'll bog down with too much building, and they've lost interest anyway; my daughter plays Slime Rancher occasionally, but at the moment they're almost exclusively used for Minecraft, Roblox, and Discord calls.
Any thoughts, suggestions? Thanks!
Edit: corrected the BSOD error message
Last edited:
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