Question Frequent BSODs are back

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Feb 23, 2022
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Hi!
I came here asking for help with random BSODs in March and after that I was free from any BSODs for about a month. However, now they're back.

I get various error codes, with KERNEL_SECURITY_FAILURE being probably the most frequent one. But I also get others like APC_INDEX_MISMATCH, DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION, etc.

The IMAGE_NAME showed when analyzing a minidump in windbg is usually ntkrnlmp.exe, but it also was npfs.sys a few times.
It probably isn't really telling much but it has never crashed when I was playing a game. It's always been either when the system is idle or not under heavy load (like watching a video on youtube, browsing on the internet, etc.).

SMART says Good and health percentage is 98~100% for all of the three drives in my PC.

I've done a virus and malware scan. There wasn't any issue detected.

I did a memtest when the BSOD issues first started and it passed. But I plan to let a test run again when I go to work tomorrow or on Thursday.

Here are the most recent minidumps: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AvBH8KEWMOnjC6poA1ti3PPuT1KmOzs6/view?usp=sharing

Here are my PC specs:
CPU: Ryzen 5 3500
GPU: GTX 1660 SUPER (Gigabyte)
MB: ASRock B450M Steel Legend
PSU: Corsair RM550x
RAM: G.Skill Flare X 2x8GB DDR4-3200
SSD1: WD Blue SN550 1TB NVMe
SSD2: WD Blue SATA SSD M.2
SSD3: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB
OS: Windows 10 Education, version 2004

I built the PC in September 2020. All parts were new except for the Samsung SSD which I previously used for about 2 weeks and then it lay dormant for about 2 years. I haven't done any mining on the PC. The PC isn't usually under heavy load for a prolonged time.

I'm aware I don't have the latest bios but I didn't wanna update it unless there doesn't seem to be any other possible solution because afaik it's not recommended to update bios as long as you're not experiencing any issues.

Here's also a screenshot from the event viewer.
5akNfJv.png


Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
 
I have updated bios to the latest version and now I got another bsod.
I didn't have verifier turned on this time because I haven't turned it on since updating the bios yet. I'm gonna turn it on and I'll add another dump file later when I get another bsod with verifier turned on.

Here's the dump file.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XD3aU8pM_3BNrOlBWt6_DeYDtip1gFJA/view?usp=sharing
io request packet shows nsiproxy which is network driver related

anyway kernel dump isnt complete, tons of missing pages and zeroed registers
 
kind of looks like steam was running, then a registry call was made
nt!_CmDeleteDeviceContainerRegKeyWorker'::2'::DeviceContainersKeyPrefix <PERF> (nt+0x0)
that ended up page faulting, then causing the memory manager to fault and bugcheck.

I don't know how to get the key from c++ code.
I look at the open registry keys and there are a lot of xbox related keys open.

I don't know how to figure out that it is network related problem.

the framework log for the network driver did have one entry:
imp_WdfRegistryOpenKey - new WDFKEY object open failed, 0xc0000034(STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND)
-------------
will look at other logs to see if I can get an idea of what is going on.
-----------
you might uninstall the microsoft gaming services and reinstall:
here is powershell script to uninstall:

get-appxpackage Microsoft.GamingServices | remove-AppxPackage -allusers
 
Last edited:
Feb 23, 2022
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Thanks a lot for another piece of advice!
I don't think that I even use Microsoft Gaming Services for anything but screen recording for some presentations like twice a year (provided that XBox Game Bar is a part of Microsoft Gaming Services). I'll uninstall it now and see what happens.

Btw. the PC can crash pretty much at any point, watching a video on youtube, or just idle after booting and logging into windows, but it has never crashed when I was playing a game. It might be just a coincidence, but I guess it might also be a hint that there's something different going on preventing it from crashing when I'm playing something.
 
Feb 23, 2022
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Let me also add several recent minidumps so that there's more information https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D6mhQAhvTaeHDFvIVIslHicRJkmcAl8f/view?usp=sharing
also one more full kernel dump https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wz4rdRstF7xfPDvjcIuFM6eoG4wq33UD/view?usp=sharing

Btw when I was looking at some older minidumps that I have saved, there were a few that listed FLTMGR.sys as the cause of the crash instead of ntoskrnl.exe. https://drive.google.com/file/d/18zQYPY2vqCoviWWDSdT0bZ-7yjaeD59s/view?usp=sharing
 
Feb 23, 2022
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Sorry for bumping this thread, but I wanna bring closure to it and leave some info here in case anyone with the same issue finds it.

I seem to have solved my issue.
I got to a point where I was getting BSOD pretty much every 5 minutes ~ 1 hour. Even when the PC was idle. However, there was a 100% successful way for me to avoid getting a BSOD, and that was playing games (Apex, BF, GTA, ...). I could play for hours without getting any BSOD, but when I closed the game, I would get a BSOD within a few minutes.
That seemed peculiar to me and I tried searching on the internet for people experiencing similar issues. I came across these threads where people with Ryzen 3000 series CPUs, mostly 3600, talked about similar problems. They described they were getting various random BSODs, but never when they were playing a demanding game. It turned out that it was caused by issues with CPU. You can read about it here.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/752965/bsod-while-idling-or-low-activity/page-4
https://community.amd.com/t5/processors/ryzen-5-3600-system-crashing-when-idle/td-p/266773

Some people in those threads said they were able to solve their issue by changing some CPU settings in BIOS.
I tried making some changes in BIOS, following information in the thread linked above, but it didn't help, so I bought a new Ryzen 5600X and replaced my cpu.
It's been a week since I replaced it and I haven't got a single BSOD.
 
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I do think amd did have some issues with cpu that were manufactured in china but were not to be released outside. Problem was they made it to the usa via grey market vendors. I found Chinese websites getting bios patches for them but since they were not release for other areas no patches came out for other sites. I tried to find the original info but can not find it now.
I also can not find the buglist for these cpus. I always hate to suggest problems are CPU related unless I find the buglist and can point to the actual known bug.
 
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