[SOLVED] Frequent BSODs related to ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x3F45A0); IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, APC_INDEX_MISMATCH, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED and others

[Kim Jong Greg]

Hello guys,

I'm looking for some help with my newly upgraded computer; at this stage, it's effectively a new build, as I am trying a fresh SSD with a new Windows 10 Pro installation.

I'm getting the following errors:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
APC_INDEX_MISMATCH
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE
and frequent crashes not logged.

Below a list of key hardware:
PCPartPicker part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/kLnvfP

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 37.8 CFM CPU Cooler
• Motherboard: ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/TB3 Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
• Storage: Intel 660p Series 1.02 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Founders Edition Video Card
• Power Supply: Corsair SF 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply
• Case Fan: Noctua A12x15 PWM 55.44 CFM 120 mm Fan
• Monitor: Xiaomi XM700001 34.0" 3440x1440 144 Hz Monitor
• Mouse: Logitech G Pro Wireless Wireless Optical Mouse
• Custom: OWC Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock
• Custom: LINKUP - Ultra PCIe 4.0 X16 Riser Cable Twin-axial Vertical Mount Gaming PCI Express Gen4 2020 | Straight Socket {25 cm} 3.0 Gen3 & TT Compatible

I can't get it to a stable state; I'm getting BSODs every couple of minutes and the machine is currently not much more than a pretty, but somewhat overpriced paperweight.

I'm going to provide you with a crash dump analysis below, as well as links to my latest dump files. For clarity, I'm going to include the steps I've taken thus far. Anything else is currently above my paygrade, and, I exhausted both my knowledge and google-fu skills at this point:

1. Hardware is running at stock values (no overclock, no XMP, UEFI defaults loaded).
2. The motherboard is running the latest BIOS which at the time of writing this is ver.2.7.0.
3. Latest drivers and Windows Updates are installed (except for currently optional KB4580364 that became available to me during the last few days. I hadn't applied it for the simple reason that the computer cannot maintain stability for long enough to download the update).
4. I used the latest available drivers as per Iobit's Driver Booster application (to save time on having to search for, check and apply drivers manually). During this "run" I took extra steps to reboot after installing each driver from the list and run the computer for a while to see whether it had any effect on the BSODs. This extra effort did not result in much extra time wasted, as the BSODs are numerous and frequent.
5. I had purposefully not installed any antivirus software. Any software installed by me on this machine (which includes even the Chrome browser, I mean ANY in the most literal sense here) has been added after the steps above, and I had not noticed any increase or further decrease in system stability. It still pretty much crashes every couple of minutes.
6. I had run the following checks:
   • Extended Memory test - no errors found, two passes
   • Elevated admin console:
     • SFC /scannow - no errors
     • DISM /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth - no errors
     • DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth - completed, no issues
7. Another problem I am having is that I cannot upload anything larger than 1MB to any platform, be it onedrive or google drive. I had to move to my laptop to upload the *.DMP files below:
   • OneDrive Crash Dump Data shared
     • Please note that I had approx six crashes not recorded in the dump files whilst trying to post this (before I resigned to my laptop😉. That's between 14:18 GMT at the time of writing and 12:31 GMT as recorded in the Crash Dump Analysis attached.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the matter.

Many thanks!

 

[Colif]

I used the latest available drivers as per Iobit's Driver Booster application (to save time on having to search for, check and apply drivers manually). During this "run" I took extra steps to reboot after installing each driver from the list and run the computer for a while to see whether it had any effect on the BSODs. This extra effort did not result in much extra time wasted, as the BSODs are numerous and frequent

I wish you hadn't done this, driver booster can only makes thing worse as it can and will install the wrong drivers. The only good thing it does is creates a system restore point before installing any drivers so at least you can roll back. I would do that now
type "restore" then open "create a restore point"
create a new Restore Point now for C-drive
then open the newest restore point that is prior to running driver booster

I will ask a friend to convert dumps

 

[Kim Jong Greg]

I wish you hadn't done this, driver booster can only makes thing worse as it can and will install the wrong drivers. The only good thing it does is creates a system restore point before installing any drivers so at least you can roll back.

Many thanks for the quickfire response.

Alright then, I'll start with a rollback, might as well nuke everything and put up a fresh install again, all the drivers from ASRock's website are downloaded on a separate partition so it won't take much time.
Having said that - if you open the attached PDF, all BSODs logged on Nov 5th Happened on a fresh install, at various stages of going through Windows Updates, with only the drivers from ASRock's product page for my mobo + NVIDIA drivers installed:

On Thu 05/11/2020 18:56:27 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\110520-7593-01.dmp
uptime: 00:14:26
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x3F45A0)
Bugcheck code: 0x1E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF8005A3FBAA8, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
Error: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error
handler did not catch.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be
identified at this time.

On Thu 05/11/2020 18:41:22 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\110520-8156-01.dmp
uptime: 00:40:21
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x3F45A0)
Bugcheck code: 0x139 (0x1E, 0xFFFFF90C71C59A90, 0xFFFFF90C71C599E8, 0x0)
Error: KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: The kernel has detected the corruption of a critical data structure.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be
identified at this time.

On Thu 05/11/2020 18:00:20 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\110520-8171-01.dmp
uptime: 00:02:59
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x3F45A0)
Bugcheck code: 0x139 (0x3, 0xFFFFFA0BD4F10680, 0xFFFFFA0BD4F105D8, 0x0)
Error: KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: The kernel has detected the corruption of a critical data structure.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be
identified at this time.

The errors are the same. There were other crashes not logged where BSOD flashed for a second and system rebooted. These types of crashes are happening every 15-20m.

Crashes which were logged at later timestamps occurred when various software has been added, including the aforementioned Driver Booster. I'll get a rollback/fresh system ready for any further comments, but, I'm expecting to still be having the issue above.

edit: clarity, typos

 

[Colif]

who crashed shows what crashed, not what caused it on 90% of the time. It always blames ntoskrnl as it was what crashed...

NTOSKRNL = windows kernel. It handles all driver requests, power management, and memory management. It sits between Hardware and Applications. It got blamed but its not the cause

I can't read the dumps myself but I have a friend who will post in here later with a conversion file I can use to hopefully help fix this.

 

[Kim Jong Greg]

I can't read the dumps myself but I have a friend who will post in here later with a conversion file I can use to hopefully help fix this.

Thanks very much. In the meantime, I've run a Prime 95 test with small FFTs option for an hour and it has thrown an error at the beginning on worker 4:

[Fri Nov 6 16:11:49 2020]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 8.203518461e+11, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Self-test 36K passed!
[...]
[Fri Nov 6 17:08:54 2020]
Self-test 96K passed!

All other tests on all other workers kept passing with no warnings or errors.

 

[gardenman]

Hi, I ran the dump files through the debugger and got the following information: https://jsfiddle.net/9gxdujym/show This link is for anyone wanting to help. You do not have to view it. It is safe to "run the fiddle" as the page asks.

Spoiler

File information:	110620-7843-01.dmp (Nov 6 2020 - 07:11:09)
Bugcheck:	APC_INDEX_MISMATCH (1)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: chrome.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 18 Min(s), and 09 Sec(s)

File information:	110620-7796-01.dmp (Nov 6 2020 - 07:31:23)
Bugcheck:	IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (A)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: Adobe CEF Helper.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 04 Min(s), and 51 Sec(s)

File information:	110520-8171-01.dmp (Nov 5 2020 - 13:00:20)
Bugcheck:	KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE (139)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: NVIDIA Share.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 02 Min(s), and 59 Sec(s)

File information:	110520-8156-01.dmp (Nov 5 2020 - 13:41:22)
Bugcheck:	KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE (139)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: WmiPrvSE.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 40 Min(s), and 21 Sec(s)

File information:	110520-7593-01.dmp (Nov 5 2020 - 13:56:27)
Bugcheck:	KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (1E)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: readerdc_uk_xa_acr_install.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 14 Min(s), and 26 Sec(s)

Comment: The overclocking driver "RTCore64.sys" was found on your system. (MSI Afterburner)

Possible Motherboard page: https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570 Phantom Gaming-ITXTB3/index.asp
There is a BIOS update available for your system. You are using version 2.70 and the latest is 2.71. 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.

 

[Kim Jong Greg]

You are using version 2.70 and the latest is 2.71.

Many thanks for the debugger files. ASRock is pumping out a new version every other day it would seem. I'm going to flash it now anyway while I wait for any suggestions😉.

 

[Colif]

Did you clean install since this?
top 2 BSOD both mention a file used by windows to track the location of files on storage drivers
3rd BSOD was Nvidia drivers
5th error is like top 2 errors.

Mar 29 2015

amd_sata.sys

AMD SATA Controller AHCI Device driver http://support.amd.com/

Desktop systems based on AMD 6-Series, 7-Series, 8-Series, 9-Series, Socket AM4, and Socket TR4 chipsets running Windows® 10 should use the Microsoft provided Standard SATA AHCI Controller driver that comes installed with Windows® by default. This configuration ensures compatibility and offers the best experience with most types of mass storage devices.

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-250

wonders if Driver Booster installed these

May 17 2016

asstahci64.sys

Asmedia 106x SATA Host Controller driver

as your board doesn't have Asmedia sata, its not listed on AStock site.

the only sata drivers you need are provided by windows. Its possible the AMD ones are installed by Microsoft during the install of win 10 but even AMD say you don't need them.

 

[Kim Jong Greg]

Given the Prime95 errors, and the fact the system just travelled about 1500miles by car (securely packaged, but still...), I ordered a new matching CPU to test out if Software issues won't subside. As things stand:

Did you clean install since this?

Just did.
Flashed the BIOS, set UEFI defaults, got a fresh Windows install going.

I also installed the following:

Drivers:

1. From the motherboard's producers page (https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570 Phantom Gaming-ITXTB3/index.asp#Download)***
   1. Intel Bluetooth driver ver:21.10.1.1
   2. Intel Lan driver ver:23.5.2
   3. Intel Thunderbolt driver ver:17.4.77.400
   4. Intel Wireless Lan driver ver:21.10.1.2
2. Downloaded independently
   1. NVIDIA Geforce Experience with latest NVIDIA drivers (Game Ready Drivers v 457.09)
3. Windows Driver Updates (see screenshot)

***Rest of the items on the list look like pointless fluff or were irrelevant (RGB Controllers, AMD VGA drivers), though I am unsure about these items on the ASRock's website:

• SATA Floppy Image ver:9.2.0.120 (the download does not contain an executable; but, as per your earlier post I didn't bother with SATA drivers - the ones that come with Windows are just fine)
• Realtek high definition audio driver ver:8750.1_UAD_WHQL_SBC5 (Windows installed the Sound Blaster Connect app for some reason, but otherwise I am getting sound on my headphones/speakers fine - should I bother installing these or leave it for now?)

Software:

1. Chrome
2. Logitech G Hub (otherwise the mouse I have is almost unusable)
3. WinRar

Updates:

1. All available Windows updates/definition updates (as per screenshots)

I think this is also the point things started going pear-shaped last time around, as, having done all of the above, my device manager still gives me this. The error where Windows is unable to find the correct drivers applies to all of them, and, out of the three listed PCI Devices I can only open properties for two (no properties window comes up, it is as though they are duplicated).

My previous lazy solution was to boot up the driver booster and have it figure it out for me. I haven't done any of that this time around.

SO FAR no crashes in what feels a record-long time on this system. I'm stepping out for about an hour, so I'm going to put on Prime95 and see what it comes back with. Will post an update.

Of course, the question of what those unknown devices actually are remains😉. I've got one PCIe slot populated by the GPU and an NVMe drive. Both accounted for in the device manager.

 

[Kim Jong Greg]

Edit: BSODs returned, they seem to be less frequent at present. They got more frequent.

I'm going to put on Prime95 and see what it comes back with. Will post an update.

Alright, P95 has been running for about 50m, the system remained stable, though the test returned rounding errors (see below)

Unfortunately, I started getting very frequent Chrome crashes (ie. STATUS_STACK_BUFFER_OVERRUN, STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION), which don't happen on any of my other systems.

Furthermore, BSODs have returned. The computer remains at the same state as outlined in my previous post (no software, drivers or updates were added in the meantime).

I am pasting both Who Crashed basic details and abridged Prime 95 results. You can find the full results as well as my Memory.DMP and minidump files HERE.

=============WHO CRASHED

System Information (local)

Computer name: DESKTOP-TJPS0T1
Windows version: Windows 10 , 10.0, build: 19042
Windows dir: C:\WINDOWS
Hardware: ASRock, X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3
CPU: AuthenticAMD AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core Processor AMD586, level: 23
12 logical processors, active mask: 4095
RAM: 34280222720 bytes total

Crash Dump Analysis

Crash dump directory: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.

On Mon 09/11/2020 17:52:15 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\110920-7593-01.dmp
uptime: 00:16:20
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x3F5210)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF8033DCCD612, 0xFFFFA48225FEFEB0, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

On Mon 09/11/2020 17:52:15 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\memory.dmp
uptime: 00:16:20
This was probably caused by the following module: ntkrnlmp.exe (nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x0)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF8033DCCD612, 0xFFFFA48225FEFEB0, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

On Mon 09/11/2020 17:35:20 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\110920-7484-01.dmp
uptime: 02:08:36
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x3F5210)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF800662ECA24, 0xFFFFE506AC7A3B10, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

Conclusion

3 crash dumps have been found and analyzed. No offending third party drivers have been found.


=============PRIME 95

Prime95 keeps throwing a rounding error at one of the cores:

[Mon Nov 9 16:14:32 2020]
FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 2.22986714e+11, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file.
Self-test 36K passed!
Self-test 36K passed!

[...]
[CUT: pass marks at various intervals]

[Mon Nov 9 16:54:48 2020]
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!
Self-test 64K passed!

 

[Colif]

rounding errors can be fixed by giving more power to CPU

need to fix that before looking at software

 

[Kim Jong Greg]

rounding errors can be fixed by giving more power to CPU

need to fix that before looking at software

Yes, that was correct - thank you for all the helpful suggestions! I managed to stabilise everything, and I figured I would post a final write-up in case anyone runs into similar issues.

Part of the problem was the CPU (as pointed to by the rounding errors in PRIME 95), and, part was wrong/missing/incorrect drivers.

The CPU required an offset of 25mV to run stable again, all random crashes, freezes, chrome crashes and most of the BSODs were removed once it got more voltage. Now, this being a 10mo part run at stock seems to suggest levels of degradation too big to accept, and I will look to RMA the part.

The latter problem has been largely self-inflicted:

***Rest of the items on the list look like pointless fluff or were irrelevant (RGB Controllers, AMD VGA drivers), though I am unsure about these items on the ASRock's website:

• SATA Floppy Image ver:9.2.0.120 (the download does not contain an executable; but, as per your earlier post I didn't bother with SATA drivers - the ones that come with Windows are just fine)
• Realtek high definition audio driver ver:8750.1_UAD_WHQL_SBC5 (Windows installed the Sound Blaster Connect app for some reason, but otherwise I am getting sound on my headphones/speakers fine - should I bother installing these or leave it for now?)

It turns out some of that pointless fluff was indeed required, namely the AMD VGA drivers, they were the ones listed as missing in my device manager, and the ones that DriverBooster had previously forced some random drivers for.
With a fresh install and all relevant drivers from the mobo's website (I skipped RGB and Floppy), Windows managed to populate all drivers correctly, and with the CPU being stable I consider the matter solved. It managed a 24h+ memtest (RAM with XMP enabled), Prime95 no longer throws rounding errors, happy days!

Many thanks to all who contributed once again!

I owe a huge thanks to ASRock support for pointing out the specific driver issues in an email thread I had going with them - they have quick and knowledgeable support, who knew?