Question Extreme amounts of BSOD relating to ntoskrnl.exe for months now..

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_Treadstone

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Mar 15, 2020
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Hi thank you all for taking a look at this! I've been bombarded and to be honest, demoralized by an insane amount of BSODs dating back all the way to early November of 2019. I'm at my wits end, and I'm looking to put a stop to this soon because I'm sure after over at least 100 BSODs (probs closer to 200) this is speeding up the wear and tear on my PC, and that is one thing that I am not gonna let happen. I'm not 100% sure why it's taken me months to consult much better equipped and knowledgeable people to help me with this.

But before, I start, I warn that this is gonna be quite a long post, as I attempt to detail almost everything I could possibly remember (I'm sure I'll miss a few things that will come to mind later on as I reply back though), in order to save everyone some time with trouble-shooting things that I've already done. So bear with me, I hope you guys don't mind the length of this post. Every bit of help is appreciated.

Here below are the Specs of the Self Built PC:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
CPU Cooler: Hyper 212 EVO RGB Black Edition 57.3CFM
MoBo: MSi MPG X570 Gaming Plus (No WiFi ; I run a CAT6 Ethernet @ 1GBps Up/Down)
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 ICX 11GB GDDR5X
RAM: 2x16GB G.Skill TridentZ NEO 3600MHz CL16 RAM (16-19-19-19-39)
HDD: 2TB Seagate 7200RPM
SSD: 1x 250GB Samsung 850 EVO
1x 1TB Samsung 860 EVO
Monitors: 2x MSi Optix MAG240MVC 24" VA Monitor
PSU: 750W G.Skill RIPJAWS 80+ Gold
Keyboard: Corsair K95 Platinum MX Speed
Mouse: Steelseries Rival 300
Headset: Kingston HyperX Cloud II

I've never come across an issue that I couldn't fix eventually with relentless researching, and some willpower. I've tried, almost everything I can think of or have come across through intense research online. I'm quite sure there is more, and tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I'm gonna try to do a full Windows Re-installation. I just did one but without wiping personal files and apps. Clearly that did not do anything since it BSOD'd immediately after firing up an actual game in MyLeague NBA2K20. The reason why I'm detailing the game, is because the blue-screens mainly began and still happen with NBA 2K19 mostly; I've just installed NBA 2K20 a few days ago in hopes that a different game would not result in the same BS. I play many other games like Rainbow Six: Siege, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019, Escape from Tarkov, SQUAD, etc and almost none of those games I just listed causes any BSOD issue besides CoD. But somehow NBA 2K games have caused the majority of crashes in terms of games, it's happened 3 times in 2 other games (Kingdoms and Castles & CoD MW) , but again they were just one or two time things and have not happened in months. Maybe 1/3rd of the time I'm using Steam's Remote Play in NBA 2K games with a friend, and they happen then very frequently. I originally thought that was the culprit. Clearly not because it happens when I'm not firing up Remote Play. It happens much less in MyCareer mode, but still every so often. As of the past 2 months, they've been happening a lot in random moments outside of games. Often times I go AFK, have no games running and it's BSOD'd. Things that are running in that moment are Firefox, sometimes Chrome/Brave, EVGA Precision X OC, a surveillance monitoring app I have on the 2nd monitor all the time called Night Owl X CMS, Discord Canary, and Steam.

I have tried many things. Without going into too much detail on each. It is worth noting that a lot of these issues happened after I got my K95 Platinum Keyboard and the GTX 1080 Ti. They could be culprits but I'm not even sure at all. Before my current RAM Kit listed above that I purchased less than a week ago, I was running 2x8 GB of G.Skill FlareX 3200MHz CL14 RAM. BSODs have not changed regardless of different RAM kits. I bought new RAM thinking for sure that it was a faulty RAM stick or both. Clearly not.

Below is a list of almost everything I've tried, and some haven't tried. Most are bad news or inconclusive:
- Reseating RAM sticks / switching them around too on both Kits


    • Running single stick for at least 12 hours on both Kits
    • Ran Memtest x86 on both Kits for 4 passes about twice each because they make you pay for the whole damn thing if you want 8 passes; all of which have come up clean
    • Ran Windows Memory Diagnostic on both kits for a total of 6 times or so by now all of which have come up clean of errors
    • Disabled A-XMP Profiles on both kits, single or dual
    • Ran single and dual sticks at stock / base 2133MHz & 2400 MHz memory, same and consistent BSODs
    • Manually OC'd RAM sticks to advertised speeds in BIOS, still BSOD
    • Updated BIOS through every iteration listed on the Manufacturer's Website
    • Updated AMD Chipset Driver straight from the Manufacturer's Website
    • Updated RealTek PCIe Lan to the latest driver straight from the Manufacturer's Website
    • Updated RealTek HD UAD Audio to the latest driver straight from the Manufacturer's Website
    • Ran PC through both Prime95 & IntelBurnTest for 14-16 back to back at maximum to stress it and see if it causes a BSOD, none.
    • Ran Windows Driver Verifier many times through regular use (no games); always says ntoskrnl.exe when checking through Windbg, BlueScreenViewer, WhoCrashed
    • Attempted to try and cause a BSOD with Driver Verifier after 3 straight BSODs in less than 12 hours, 2 from game, 1 when AFK. This took 3 tries totaling some 16 hours of both playing and letting the game sit idle with and without alt-tab before it finally BSOD'd overnight when I was asleep. The result when checking BlueScreenViewer? ntoskrnl.exe. (I know it's not the blame)
    • Updated all drivers both auto-search through Windows Update or Manual Update in the following Device Manager categories Audio inputs & outputs, Disk Drives, Display Adapters, IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, Keyboards, Mice & Other Pointing Devices, Network Adapters, Ports (COM & LPT)
Sound, Video and Game Controllers, Storage Controllers, System Devices, USB & Xbox Peripherals


    • Because I play a lot of sports Games, I use a controller, and I've attempted to look for updates to the Xbox Controllers thinking they could be the issue. Haven't been successful. BSODs happen with or without controller plugged in via USB.
    • Updated Firmware and Driver for iCUE (Corsair Keyboard app)
    • Updated Firmware and Driver for Kingston HyperX Cloud II headset + upgraded Audio Control Box (physical upgrade)
    • Updated Steelseries Engine Firmware & Driver for Steelseries Rival 300 Mouse
    • Installed every Windows Update since November 2019
    • Reinstalled windows 5 hours ago, without removing Personal Apps & Files. Have not tried clean wipe yet.
    • Have even rolledback Window Updates several times
    • Ran DDU to uninstall Nvidia Drivers completely in Safe Mode, reinstall current or updated Drivers. Still BSOD like crazy. I've even tried rolling back Drivers a few or just right before the October 2019 updates.
    • Uninstalled and Reinstalled GPU in Device Manager
    • Updated via Auto-Search and Manually via Device Manager for the GPU as stated before.
    • Also ran PC through Heavens Unigine 4.0, Valley Benchmark, Furmark through both Graphics and CPU Stress Test for hours, no BSODs
    • Have run Cinebench R15 & R20 without causing any BSODs
    • Just ran 3DMark yesterday, and this is where it gets interested but again, I'm not sure. The benchmark wouldn't ever finish because it gets an error on the Graphics 2 Test. It happened 3 times, and on the 4th yesterday it BSOD'd, giving me the stopcode "Bad Pool Caller"; It's worth noting that my 1080 Ti score obviously is skewed but without overclock, without G-Sync running, it gets at most 9270 scored which is much lower than most 1080 Ti scores I've seen. GPU doesn't struggle in any games I play, regardless of settings at upscaled 1440p even on Ultra cranking well over 100 fps.
    • Ran games with and without temp / performance monitoring softwares(HWInfo, Precision X OC, AMD Ryzen Master, Dragon Center, etc). Under full load from heavy and intensive benchmarks, neither GPU or CPU exceed 72C ever on average. In games, never seen either above 70C. By sense, when I place my hand on the PC, it's never hot either, just to make sure the readings are remotely accurate and nothing is really frying inside.
    • I use Arctic MX-4 Thermal Paste on my CPU with more than enough.
    • Have tried SFC/ Scannow numerous times on all drives; same with Chkdsk. All positive results.
    • Defrag every 2-3 weeks or so, no change.
    • Using Computer in Power Saver Mode vs Balanced and AMD Ryzen Balanced Power Mode

These are all I can think of for now, there are probably more. I've done almost everything short of reinstalling Windows entirely and wiping the C Drive clean (I did in September 2019) since the BSODs happened, I have yet to update BIOS for my specific GPU because I haven't figured out how to properly do it or if any drivers listed on TechPowerUp's website are official drivers, nor do I know how to back the original BIOS update. Haven't taken it to a technician's store to have it looked at either.

The most frequent Stopcode Errors I get are (in no specific order):
- KERNEL_AUTO_BOOST_INVALID_LOCK_RELEASE


    • KERNEL_AUTO_BOOST_LOCK_ACQUISITION_WITH_RAISED_IRQL
    • IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
    • SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
    • SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
    • KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

Occasionally a DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION , KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE, KERNEL_THREAD_PRIORITY_FLOOR_VIOLATION _ATTEMPTED_TO_WRITE_READONLY_MEMORY , DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER, MEMORY_MANAGEMENT, APC_INDEX_MISMATCH here and there.

As of late, there's been a big increase in, almost all happening outside of a game:

  • ATTEMPTED_TO_EXECUTE_NOEXECUTE_MEMORY
    [*]PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA


Most of the blamed "driver address" are ntoskrnl.exe in fact I'm willing to say about 98% of them are. Other times there's been FLTMGR.SYS, BAM.sys, Npfs.sys and HAL.dll based on BlueScreenViewer, WhoCrashed, and Windbg. I reinstalled Windows entirely back in September 2019, with some of the same BSODs, like System Service Exception, Kmode Exception Not Handled, and IRQL Not Less or Equal. But after reinstall they were gone for 2 months. Before September I've never had more than 1 BSOD on this same computer despite vastly different parts across the board. Another thing worth addressing is when mid game especially in the 2K sports games, the game crashes a lot, and I'm not sure if that's a driver acting up or the game itself being poorly optimized. When it doesn't crash, it blue-screens or if neither, the Surveillance Camera app NightOwlX CMS crashes inexplicably everytime. Sometimes Discord crashes along with Precision X OC. This does not happen in any other game, aside from when it happens randomly with no games running.

I've done everything short of reinstalling Windows entirely again, updating GPU BIOS (if it's possible for mine), taking it to a local technician and pay to have it resolved, or just straight up shooting it.

I have the last 11 or so BSODs within the last 2 days, uploaded to OneDrive. Any previous ones I've missed, which is a lot, I have 3-4 BSODs copied and pasted into a text file; I'll copy and paste in a reply if need be, but below are the 11 dumps

Mini-Dump Links:

03/09/2020

03/11/2020

03/12/2020

03/13/2020 (1)

03/13/2020 (2)

03/13/2020 (3)

03/13/2020 (4)

03/14/2020 (1)

03/14/2020 (2)

03/14/2020 (3)

03/15/2020

Again, any bit of help is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for taking your time to read this extremely long post!
 
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All of the drivers look okay for an Asus board

Did you install the intel processor diagnostic tool?
May 01 2013 - WinRing0x64.sys - Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool or BatteryCare by OpenLibSys.org or Throttlestop (Properties say: OpenLibSys.org) or EVGA Precision X https://www.evga.com/

or one of the others it mentions?

I think the 2nd BSOD caused by Nvidia drivers. Try running DDU and use older Nvidia drivers or run windows update after DDU and let windows install drivers for the card
https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...n-install-of-your-video-card-drivers.2402269/

I cannot tell what caused top one.

Out of those 4, I have EVGA Precision X1 installed. Don't have any Intel Processor diagnostic tool, nor Battery Care or Throttlestop.

I reinstalled windows entirely after once again, zeroing it and fully cleaning the previous C Drive. I purposely let the CPU run the VCore at auto at around 1.48-1.51V and it blue-screened fairly quickly, almost within the first 4-5 minutes of a fresh install with 2-3 programs downloaded (no graphics driver, just Discord, AMD Ryzen Master and Firefox The second time after a restart a few hours later I forgot to adjust the voltage back down to 1.34375 and it blue-screened as well. When at a safe voltage the computer ran for hours and did various tasks, intensive and non-intensive just fine with no crashes.
 
well, driver is in all 4 programs linked, Gardenmans program can't tell which you have so we list them all.

Hope the voltage is the reason then.

I honestly hope so too. But this is all very preliminary. I will keep you guys updated, thank you all so much for helping me thus far!

I will share the two blue-screen dumps from this most recent windows reinstallation later.
 
I ran the dump files through the debugger and got the following information: https://morphoticsunbear.htmlpasta.com/

File information:042620-10328-01.dmp (Apr 26 2020 - 01:26:08)
Bugcheck:SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION (3B)
Probably caused by:memory_corruption (Process: LightingService.exe)
Uptime:0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 50 Min(s), and 29 Sec(s)

File information:042520-5750-01.dmp (Apr 25 2020 - 20:06:11)
Bugcheck:DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER (F7)
Probably caused by:memory_corruption (Process: System)
Uptime:0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 00 Min(s), and 12 Sec(s)

Possible Motherboard page: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-X570-PRO/
You have the latest BIOS already installed.

This information can be used by others to help you. I can't help you with this. Someone else will post with more information. Please wait for additional answers. Good luck.
 
I have managed to fix mine problem with buying a new cpu (the same model). Apparently it's a common problem with some first editions. Never had a single bsod since then.

It's what I had planned to do tomorrow by calling Microcenter to inquire about a 1 year warranty on my processor. Try to see if I have to buy another processor, or can I get some sort of discount.

I have reason to believe my 3700X is somewhat damaged by the constant flow of high voltage for 8 months. Adjusting the VCore from the BIOS no matter how low the voltage, has resulted in a boot loop everytime. Even after BIOS reset / clearing the CMOS.
 
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Hey! So it's been about 11-12 days since I last posted an update. Want to thank you all for the effort, time and help! Especially @Colif and @gardenman! Absolutely no BSOD whatsoever, not even a hiccup in almost 2 weeks. I've been running Folding @ Home for 12 days now too. Pushing the CPU all the way to 70C+ consistent overnight and several hours during the day; everything has been running fluently!

Again, thank you all very much!
 
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