[SOLVED] Getting random bluescreens, probably related to ntoskrnl.exe ?

[melthay]

Hi everyone

I got my new system a few weeks ago and it works like a dream - except when it doesnt
I keep getting random bluescreens (sometimes 2-3 a day, sometimes none for a few days) regardless of the system load. Just today i got one after booting and only chrome running.
I haven't overclocked anything and the temperatures are fine. I also don't have any anti-virus other than windows defender installed since that seems to be often the cause for these types of errors.

The error message is often different, but the root cause seems to be ntoskrnl.exe. I did some googling but didn't find help for my specific issue.

System informations:

• Intel Core i9-12900K
• ASUS ROG STRIX Z690-G WiFi
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB | Gigabyte Gaming OC LHR
• 2 x 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-5200
• 2TB Samsung 980 Pro

What i tried so far:

• Fresh reinstall of windows 11
• Update of gpu driver
• Update of other drivers using intel support assistant thingy
• Running windows memory diagnostic check (no errors)
• Running scandisk (also no errors)

Link to minidump (sadly some got erased but i hope these five suffice):
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ag7OJTnecnJbm-lwVB_Uu4nj6X_5qg?e=Xg3aMb

Thanks in advance and let me know if any additional information is required.

 

[Colif]

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 will ask a friend to look at dumps, he will probably reply later.

if it survives a clean install its likely hardware.

What PSU do you have?
Do you have latest BIOS on motherboard?
Does motherboard have armoury crate? does it include an app to update drivers?

knowing what codes you are getting helps me more than its victim. ntoskrnl often blamed as it is involved in almost every action windows makes. Dumps might actually show a driver name but I doubt its a driver, you would have to be really unlucky

 

[melthay]

Thanks for your response,

What PSU do you have?

1000W - be quiet! Straight Power 11 Platinum

Do you have latest BIOS on motherboard?

According to Armoury Crate - yes

Does motherboard have armoury crate? does it include an app to update drivers?

It has and it does. All drivers are up to date according to the tool. The only driver that isn't installed is the realtek audio driver but I'm using an external usb audio interface anyway (focusfrite scarlet 2i2) so that probably shouldn't be an issue

knowing what codes you are getting helps me more than its victim.

It's either SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION, IQRL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED or SYSTEM_THREAD_EXECEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

 

[Colif]

Those are standard BSOD. They don't tell me anything of note and I can't guess what cause might be from them.

as I said, my friend will convert dumps and if you lucky, might have name of driver at fault, or at very least, a file I can use to read conversion.

 

[gardenman]

Hi, I ran the dump files through the debugger and got the following information: https://jsfiddle.net/ny6dxevb/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: Dump File Results

File information:	010822-7031-01.dmp (Jan 8 2022 - 04:31:09)
Bugcheck:	SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION (3B)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: OVRServer_x64.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 00 Min(s), and 26 Sec(s)

File information:	010822-6578-01.dmp (Jan 8 2022 - 04:29:53)
Bugcheck:	IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (A)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: System)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 20 Min(s), and 56 Sec(s)

File information:	010822-6546-01.dmp (Jan 8 2022 - 04:37:29)
Bugcheck:	KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (1E)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: OAWrapper.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 00 Min(s), and 35 Sec(s)

File information:	010722-6812-01.dmp (Jan 7 2022 - 04:52:55)
Bugcheck:	IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (A)
Probably caused by:	ntkrnlmp.exe (Process: System)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 05 Min(s), and 23 Sec(s)

File information:	010622-6640-01.dmp (Jan 6 2022 - 07:15:15)
Bugcheck:	SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M (1000007E)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: System)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 5 Hour(s), 16 Min(s), and 37 Sec(s)

Comment: The GPU tweaking driver "iomap64.sys" was found on your system. (AI Suite or GPU Tweak 2 or Armoury Crate)

Possible Motherboard page: https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-z690-g-gaming-wifi-model/
There is a BIOS update available for your system. 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.

 

[Colif]

crash 1 - possibly Ethernet or WiFi, depends which you use (victim part of Occulus so could also be GPU crash)
both are intel, try running this and see if newer - https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html
crash 2 - GPU Drivers caused this one
crash 3 - cause unclear but victim is part of Nvidia Geforce Experience, so could be GPU drivers
crash 4 - could be gpu as well. Not as obvious as 2.
crash 5 - not obvious

Now you have latest Nvidia drivers but I have seen a few people recently having issues with them.
try running DDU and reinstall drivers - https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq...n-install-of-your-video-card-drivers.2402269/

 

[melthay]

Sadly that didn't do the trick

Here are two additional minidump files. Not sure if they'll help but hopefully, they'll aid in narrow down the offending driver / hardware. Note that the older one was before the gpu driver reinstall and the newer one after.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ag7OJTnecnJbm-l01Sf5gikA08X6UqQ?e=P2Fdty

Steps I've taken since the last post:

• Checked for new driver using the intel support assistant (didn't find any)
• Reinstalled the GPU driver as described. This time without geforce experience, just to see if that could be the culprit.
• Ran memtest86 => Zero errors after 4 passes again.

So maybe we can at least rule out the ram? Which other hardware defects could lead to such errors?

 

[Colif]

lets see what results of latest crashes show before we check hardware.

 

[gardenman]

I ran the new dump files through the debugger and got the following information: https://jsfiddle.net/3a4tmjfh/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: Dump File Results

File information:	010922-8218-01.dmp (Jan 9 2022 - 04:17:30)
Bugcheck:	KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (1E)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: explorer.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 30 Min(s), and 13 Sec(s)

File information:	010922-6796-01.dmp (Jan 9 2022 - 04:42:40)
Bugcheck:	CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (EF)
Probably caused by:	memory_corruption (Process: svchost.exe)
Uptime:	0 Day(s), 0 Hour(s), 11 Min(s), and 55 Sec(s)

Comment: The GPU tweaking driver "iomap64.sys" was found on your system. (AI Suite or GPU Tweak 2 or Armoury Crate)

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

 

[Colif]

well, those are more typical dump results. Not telling me a lot. I hate them as now I have to think of something to do now...

it doesn't look like hardware, both errors occurred on either ram or CPU. One happened after CPU couldn't find what it needed on itself and had to look on ram, that is normal. Could be a driver giving wrong instructions.

I don't know windows well enough to know what it does all the time, so some processes are like... what is it doing? Worked out most of it from seeing lots of dump files.

try running samsung Magician on nvme, test its health out. https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
wonder if it could use the Samsung NVME drivers, they on same page.

 

[melthay]

I'll try that out.
Additionally, I updated BIOS to the latest version. Although amorury crate told me it was already up to date there was a newer driver available on the Asus website.

No bluescreens so far so fingers crossed

 

[cdupont]

I'll try that out.
Additionally, I updated BIOS to the latest version. Although amorury crate told me it was already up to date there was a newer driver available on the Asus website.

No bluescreens so far so fingers crossed

Did you also use the DDU software and manually find the most up to date drivers for your GPU? If the problem persists your dump files have many GPU hits. DDU will remove any older driver files, especially if they're causing issues. Here is the latest driver for your card (confirm that your card is not a ti or notebook series, I assumed it wasn't), it was released this month on the 4th so it's fairly new.

Hope the updated BIOS fixed your issue!

 

[melthay]

Yes I did.

So far so good. Let's hope it stays that way

 

[zesun]

It may be armory crate. It caused crashes on my system. Had to do a clean install of Windows because i couldn't get rid of it totallly.

 

[Colif]

It may be armory crate. It caused crashes on my system. Had to do a clean install of Windows because i couldn't get rid of it totallly.

One reason to almost avoid Asus boards now is that the bios, on 1st boot after an install, will try to install armory crate on your PC. Whether you want it or not.

I don't mind that motherbaord makers have these apps that can auto update drivers for you. I just don't like the fact they fill them up full of bloat apps like Norton or Browsers, and if you not careful when running the app you could end up with a bunch of crap you didn't want. Gigabyte App centre is bad for that, auto select everything every start. No, bad.

 

[zesun]

One reason to almost avoid Asus boards now is that the bios, on 1st boot after an install, will try to install armory crate on your PC. Whether you want it or not.

Agreed. I am not looking for asus motherboards on my next build. "Forcing" those apps is the last straw for me.