Question Help me read the dump files from three BSODs ?

[NikkiXoLynnn]

Dump Files from 3 BSODs here

A few details that may or may not matter.
First one was while I was asleep and it was supposed to be hibernating but the battery was dead when I opened it which usually means it chose not to hibernate and instead did dumb stuff until it died. This happens periodically. Here and there. Wasn’t too concerned. Looked up the error and it mentioned maybe the hibernation file size being too small can cause it so I upped that to 100.

Next day it did not BSOD during hibernation so I was happy and forgot about it. I was deleting some files about half an hour after opening it and boom, another BSOD. Grabbed my phone to get a pic of the screen but it was gone before I could snap it. Now I’m panicking thinking I haven’t done a backup in months and grabbed a drive. Another blue screen about 10 minutes later. Really panicking now but I was able to back it up after that. Which took hours. No more blue screens and none today after deleting files for several hours.

I just had it at the computer place for literally like a month in October. Upgraded RAM to 32. Switched out my C drive for a bigger one and mirrored it for me. Found bare spots in my liquid metal that were black (known problem with ASUS ROG STRIX G15 Advantage edition laptops). He re applied the liquid metal and did not tell me until after that it was his first time. Thermals were awful when I got it back and he had bare spots too so he had to fix that.

I saw the 2nd bug report can maybe point to bad drives, RAM, or thermals so I went over that. All new. I monitor temps constantly. Have not noticed issues. CrystalDisk is not showing any bad or pending sectors on either drive. ASUS “diagnostic tool” says everything is fine.

I paid this guy half of what I paid for the laptop in October and I’m really stressing out about having to do that again. If someone can read these and maybe give me an idea as to what the issue might be so I can decide next steps I’d appreciate it!

Edit-
Forgot to mention, he says he was on the phone with ASUS for hours trying to get BIOS to update and they could not figure it out. I guess they told him I’d have to RMA it if I want to fix that and I’ve heard ASUS RMA horror stories a lot so I did not do that. It’s BIOS 311 right now

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

ASUS ROG STRIX G15 Advantage edition
+
It’s BIOS 311 right now

ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition | Laptops | ROG Global

rog.asus.com

The latest BIOS version is 331. #11 is not listed on their site. Unless you've mentioned another laptop's model on accident.

 

[ubuysa]

If you've been having BSODs then there should be minidumps in the folder C:\Windows\Minidumps. Please upload all that you find.

I've never been a fan of messing with the hibernation file size. Frankly, if your system drive is too small for a hibernate file then you need a bigger system drive - or stop using hibernation. It really needs to be the size of your installed RAM. And if you upgraded RAM without reinstalling Windows (which you seem to have) then I'm not surprised there was a hibernate BSOD.

I would recommend turning hibernation off (powercfg -h off) which will delete the existing hiberfil.sys, and then switch hibernation back on again (powercfg -h on) to create a new hiberfil.sys file. If you want a belt-and-braces approach then reboot between turning it off and on.

When you upgraded the RAM did you check the following...

• That the new RAM sticks had exactly the same part number as the existing RAM sticks
• That the new RAM (and the existing RAM) are on the QVL for the motherboard

You say the builder swapped out your C: drive and 'mirrored it for me'? I suspect you mean that they cloned it so you didn't need to do a reinstall? Disk cloning is not always a 100% foolproof process. In your position I would (and always do) a fully clean reinstall of Windows. I appreciate the desire to save time and effort by cloning, but if you want a stable and reliable system then a clean install when the system drive is changed is a wise move. So there's a question mark about the state of your system drive now.

I'd also be worried about whether the overheating due to the bad paste jobs will have caused damage to the CPU. Did you ever measure the temps? I would suggest you download HWMonitor (free), expand the CPU temps section se we can see all the individual cores, and post two screenshots of that display. Post one with the system completely idle - stop everything you don't need. Post another with as heavy a load as you can throw at it.

The minidumps may tell us more.

I know this doesn't help you but from what you're saying about the builder I wouldn't trust him too much.

 

[NikkiXoLynnn]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

ASUS ROG STRIX G15 Advantage edition
+
It’s BIOS 311 right now

ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition | Laptops | ROG Global

rog.asus.com

The latest BIOS version is 331. #11 is not listed on their site. Unless you've mentioned another laptop's model on accident.

It’s this line, right? 311. It’s not the newest version. That’s what I was trying to explain. I was afraid to update it myself so I asked them to do it at the computer place and he said it kept failing and despite being on the phone with ASUS for hours they could not get it to update and ASUS said I’d need to RMA it if I wanted that fixed. So I’m stuck on 311 currently. He didn’t give me any info as to why it was failing, just that it did.

 

[NikkiXoLynnn]

If you've been having BSODs then there should be minidumps in the folder C:\Windows\Minidumps. Please upload all that you find.

I've never been a fan of messing with the hibernation file size. Frankly, if your system drive is too small for a hibernate file then you need a bigger system drive - or stop using hibernation. It really needs to be the size of your installed RAM. And if you upgraded RAM without reinstalling Windows (which you seem to have) then I'm not surprised there was a hibernate BSOD.

I would recommend turning hibernation off (powercfg -h off) which will delete the existing hiberfil.sys, and then switch hibernation back on again (powercfg -h on) to create a new hiberfil.sys file. If you want a belt-and-braces approach then reboot between turning it off and on.

When you upgraded the RAM did you check the following...

• That the new RAM sticks had exactly the same part number as the existing RAM sticks
• That the new RAM (and the existing RAM) are on the QVL for the motherboard

You say the builder swapped out your C: drive and 'mirrored it for me'? I suspect you mean that they cloned it so you didn't need to do a reinstall? Disk cloning is not always a 100% foolproof process. In your position I would (and always do) a fully clean reinstall of Windows. I appreciate the desire to save time and effort by cloning, but if you want a stable and reliable system then a clean install when the system drive is changed is a wise move. So there's a question mark about the state of your system drive now.

I'd also be worried about whether the overheating due to the bad paste jobs will have caused damage to the CPU. Did you ever measure the temps? I would suggest you download HWMonitor (free), expand the CPU temps section se we can see all the individual cores, and post two screenshots of that display. Post one with the system completely idle - stop everything you don't need. Post another with as heavy a load as you can throw at it.

The minidumps may tell us more.

I know this doesn't help you but from what you're saying about the builder I wouldn't trust him too much.

If you've been having BSODs then there should be minidumps in the folder C:\Windows\Minidumps. Please upload all that you find.

I've never been a fan of messing with the hibernation file size. Frankly, if your system drive is too small for a hibernate file then you need a bigger system drive - or stop using hibernation. It really needs to be the size of your installed RAM. And if you upgraded RAM without reinstalling Windows (which you seem to have) then I'm not surprised there was a hibernate BSOD.

I would recommend turning hibernation off (powercfg -h off) which will delete the existing hiberfil.sys, and then switch hibernation back on again (powercfg -h on) to create a new hiberfil.sys file. If you want a belt-and-braces approach then reboot between turning it off and on.

When you upgraded the RAM did you check the following...

• That the new RAM sticks had exactly the same part number as the existing RAM sticks
• That the new RAM (and the existing RAM) are on the QVL for the motherboard

You say the builder swapped out your C: drive and 'mirrored it for me'? I suspect you mean that they cloned it so you didn't need to do a reinstall? Disk cloning is not always a 100% foolproof process. In your position I would (and always do) a fully clean reinstall of Windows. I appreciate the desire to save time and effort by cloning, but if you want a stable and reliable system then a clean install when the system drive is changed is a wise move. So there's a question mark about the state of your system drive now.

I'd also be worried about whether the overheating due to the bad paste jobs will have caused damage to the CPU. Did you ever measure the temps? I would suggest you download HWMonitor (free), expand the CPU temps section se we can see all the individual cores, and post two screenshots of that display. Post one with the system completely idle - stop everything you don't need. Post another with as heavy a load as you can throw at it.

The minidumps may tell us more.

I know this doesn't help you but from what you're saying about the builder I wouldn't trust him too much.

There were 4 (?) files in the minidump folder and one big “memory.dmp” outside of the folder. I copied all to a folder on my desktop and zipped them. Did they not all upload properly? Here it is again with just the minidumps this time! Hopefully that works?

I’m entirely unsure what he did exactly when upgrading the RAM but given he happily took my money to mirror my old drive knowing he was also upgrading the RAM and would need a fresh install to do that properly I assume he didn’t do one. That’s actually upsetting because he knew I was perfectly capable of installing the drive myself. I only had him do it because I wanted it mirrored and didn’t know how. So I paid him for that and will now have to wipe it, anyway. Total waste of my money. I even added the heatsink and thermal pads on it myself before having him put it in. A fresh install will only wipe the drive windows is on, right? Not the one in the other slot?

I actually used up that 32gigs of RAM pretty fast and decided to upgrade again to 64 so I just bought a new kit. When I install that (going DIY this time) I’ll do a fresh windows install. I’ll compare the sticks. I still have the original ones. I wasn’t aware of this QVL thing, though. Or part numbers… Are you assuming it’s quad channel and I added 2 to the original ones? It’s dual channel so we replaced them entirely with the new kit. Do the part numbers still need to match if you’re replacing them? I just looked up my laptop on Crucial’s compatibility chart and went by that. Damn. Guess it’s better to find out now than after I put them in, though.

I’ve been monitoring my temps since not long after I got the laptop using CoreTemp. I have it set to ding with popup if temps go above 85. On idle it’s usually low to high 30’s. Gaming mid to high 70’s or sometimes up to 86-87 briefly depending on the game but usually not prolonged. One specific game I got that was unoptimized had it hitting 96+ just on the main menu and actually caused the laptop to shut itself off. But this was the first time I’d ever seen it that high or had the laptop shut itself off due to temps and I stopped using the game right away. This was what prompted me to have him check the liquid metal to be safe and that’s how we discovered the bare spots on CPU and GPU (patiently waiting on the class action against ASUS for that one because it’s a pretty big screw up). I also know he was messing with the game to replicate my issue and caused the shut downs quite a few times. Ran the game much longer than I ever did. Repeatedly. Idk if that’s enough to damage anything? After his bad thermal job I was unable to open any game without it shutting itself off so I didn’t use it at all before he fixed it.

As for trustworthiness, I’m already looking for a new place to bring it to. It’s hard in my state. We’re all forest. This place an hour’s drive one way had great reviews but (I know it’s not skill related) a day after he got the computer he got my full name off my microsoft account and found me on facebook… I was instantly worried about my decision (and VERY glad I bought a laptop with no webcam). My perception of their professionalism went right down the drain after that. Skills wise, I think he bit off more than he could chew and should have informed me that he was out of his depth so I could decide if I wanted my hardware to be his first time working on something. Especially something like liquid metal. He had it for nearly a month. I noticed silver smudges on the outside of the laptop when I got it back. I can’t imagine what that could be besides liquid metal. I haven’t opened it up yet… Based on current temps though it seems like he fixed his mistake. It’s back to normal.

I use a nice fan tray now for gaming so it rarely hits 80. Often 55-75 based on game. But I can download the app you mentioned if you think it’s better than CoreTemp? I do wish it showed me GPU temp as well because that’s one I don’t often see. Only CPU. But I do have that app open 24/7. This is idle with no tray fan. It did hit 86 without my tray fan while I was messing around in BIOS looking for my motherboard number. I had to google that, didn’t realize BIOS put it under load but apparently it does. That’s the highest I’ve seen it since I got it back. He did run the crazy game again before returning it for like an hour (found out later he actually played it along with several other games he ran. Not sure if I paid him for that time or not). He said temps still hit 90ish but didn’t go high enough to shut it down anymore. I didn’t try it, myself. Scared of that game now. Haha

 

[NikkiXoLynnn]

There were 4 (?) files in the minidump folder and one big “memory.dmp” outside of the folder. I copied all to a folder on my desktop and zipped them. Did they not all upload properly? I’ll try it again with just the minidumps this time!

I’m entirely unsure what he did exactly when upgrading the RAM or switching out the C drive. By “mirrored it” I meant he got all of my personal stuff off the old drive and onto the new one I assume using Samsung Magician since it’s now installed and was not there previously. Not sure if he copied windows or installed it fresh, I assume there isn’t a way to tell? I actually used up that 32gigs of RAM pretty fast and decided to upgrade again to 64 so I just bought a new kit. When I install that (going DIY this time) I’ll look up how to do a fresh windows install. That was not included in the tutorial I watched so I appreciate the info. I want to do it properly. Computer guy bought the other RAM kit for me but he put my old sticks in the package so I’ll compare them when I open the back. He did have me send him a pic of my motherboard before I sent the laptop saying he needed the model number so I’d like to assume it’s going to match.

I’ve been monitoring my temps since not long after I got the laptop using CoreTemp. I have it set to ding if temps go above 85. On idle it’s usually low to high 30’s. Gaming mid to high 70’s or sometimes up to 86-87 briefly depending on the game but usually not prolonged. One specific game I got that was unoptimized had it hitting 96+ just on the main menu and actually caused the laptop to shut itself off. But this was the first time I’d ever seen it that high or had the laptop shut itself off due to temps and I stopped using the game. This was what prompted me to have him check the liquid metal to be safe and that’s how we discovered the bare spots on CPU and GPU. I also know he was messing with the game to replicate my issue and caused the shut downs quite a few times. Ran the game much longer than I ever did. Idk if that’s enough to damage anything? After his thermal job I was unable to open any game without it shutting itself off so I didn’t use it at all before he fixed it.

As for trustworthiness, I’m already looking for a new place to bring it to. This place had great reviews but (I know it’s not skill related) a day after he got the computer he got my full name off my microsoft account and found me on facebook… I was instantly worried about my decision (and VERY glad I bought a laptop with no webcam). Skills wise, I think he bit off more than he could chew and should have informed me that he was out of his depth so I could decide if I wanted my hardware to be his first time working on something. Especially something like liquid metal. I noticed silver smudges on the outside of the laptop when I got it back. I haven’t opened it up yet… Based on current temps though it seems like he fixed his mistake. I use a nice fan tray now for gaming so it’s rarely over 75. Often 65-70. But I can download the app you mentioned if you think it’s better than CoreTemp? I do wish it showed me GPU temp as well because that’s one I don’t often see. Only CPU. But I do have that app open 24/7

There were 4 (?) files in the minidump folder and one big “memory.dmp” outside of the folder. I copied all to a folder on my desktop and zipped them. Did they not all upload properly? Here it is again with just the minidumps this time! Hopefully that works?

I’m entirely unsure what he did exactly when upgrading the RAM but given he happily took my money to mirror my old drive knowing he was also upgrading the RAM and would need a fresh install to do that properly I assume he didn’t do one. That’s actually upsetting because he knew I was perfectly capable of installing the drive myself. I only had him do it because I wanted it mirrored and didn’t know how. So I paid him for that and will now have to wipe it, anyway. Total waste of my money. I even added the heatsink and thermal pads on it myself before having him put it in. A fresh install will only wipe the drive windows is on, right? Not the one in the other slot?

I actually used up that 32gigs of RAM pretty fast and decided to upgrade again to 64 so I just bought a new kit. When I install that (going DIY this time) I’ll do a fresh windows install. I’ll compare the sticks. I still have the original ones. I wasn’t aware of this QVL thing, though. Or part numbers… Are you assuming it’s quad channel and I added 2 to the original ones? It’s dual channel so we replaced them entirely with the new kit. Do the part numbers still need to match if you’re replacing them? I just looked up my laptop on Crucial’s compatibility chart and went by that. Damn. Guess it’s better to find out now than after I put them in, though.

I’ve been monitoring my temps since not long after I got the laptop using CoreTemp. I have it set to ding with popup if temps go above 85. On idle it’s usually low to high 30’s. Gaming mid to high 70’s or sometimes up to 86-87 briefly depending on the game but usually not prolonged. One specific game I got that was unoptimized had it hitting 96+ just on the main menu and actually caused the laptop to shut itself off. But this was the first time I’d ever seen it that high or had the laptop shut itself off due to temps and I stopped using the game right away. This was what prompted me to have him check the liquid metal to be safe and that’s how we discovered the bare spots on CPU and GPU (patiently waiting on the class action against ASUS for that one because it’s a pretty big screw up). I also know he was messing with the game to replicate my issue and caused the shut downs quite a few times. Ran the game much longer than I ever did. Repeatedly. Idk if that’s enough to damage anything? After his bad thermal job I was unable to open any game without it shutting itself off so I didn’t use it at all before he fixed it.

As for trustworthiness, I’m already looking for a new place to bring it to. It’s hard in my state. We’re all forest. This place an hour’s drive one way had great reviews but (I know it’s not skill related) a day after he got the computer he got my full name off my microsoft account and found me on facebook… I was instantly worried about my decision (and VERY glad I bought a laptop with no webcam). My perception of their professionalism went right down the drain after that. Skills wise, I think he bit off more than he could chew and should have informed me that he was out of his depth so I could decide if I wanted my hardware to be his first time working on something. Especially something like liquid metal. He had it for nearly a month. I noticed silver smudges on the outside of the laptop when I got it back. I can’t imagine what that could be besides liquid metal. I haven’t opened it up yet… Based on current temps though it seems like he fixed his mistake. It’s back to normal.

I use a nice fan tray now for gaming so it rarely hits 80. Often 55-75 based on game. But I can download the app you mentioned if you think it’s better than CoreTemp? I do wish it showed me GPU temp as well because that’s one I don’t often see. Only CPU. But I do have that app open 24/7. This is idle with no tray fan. It did hit 86 without my tray fan while I was messing around in BIOS looking for my motherboard number. I had to google that, didn’t realize BIOS put it under load but apparently it does. That’s the highest I’ve seen it since I got it back. He did run the crazy game again before returning it for like an hour (found out later he actually played it along with several other games he ran. Not sure if I paid him for that time or not). He said temps still hit 90ish but didn’t go high enough to shut it down anymore. I didn’t try it, myself. Scared of that game now. Haha

No idea why my “first draft” response without the links posted as well as my “final draft” when I definitely replaced it… My bad. Please ignore draft one. I jumping back and forth googling what you said as I typed and apparently messed it up. Me and “forums” don’t get along very well.

Edit- Found the edit button and deleted draft 1 but wasn’t sure how to delete your part so that’s still doubled. Slowly learning…

 

[ubuysa]

I now have the minidumps, thank you. Based on the dumps I think the most likely cause of these BSODs is your NVMe drive. Two of the dumps (021024-9390-01.dmp and 020824-11281-01.dmp) fail with a 0xC0000185 exception code, that's a
the I/O device reported an I/O error exception. In the first of those dumps the error seem to occur during the nt!MiWaitForInPageComplete function call and whilst waiting for a read from the system drive. The other dump seems to have been buffering data read in from the network, but it fails whilst reading pages from the system drive.

Another dump is a CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED and they are almost always hardware related. Typically it's RAM that causes these BSODs but it could be the system drive also - although there is no evidence of that in this dump. However, the dump does seem to be corrupted somehow, the debugger fails to load it fully, and that too suggests a system drive issue perhaps.

The fourth dump is an INTERNAL_POWER_ERROR, indicating that the system failed to complete a power transition in a timely manner. That's also almost always a hardware problem. It's not possible from this dump to identify what failed the power transition.

In summary, there certainly seems to be some sort of hardware issue with this laptop. I'd query the NVMe drive based on these dumps. It may just need removing and re-seating. That often fixes many niggly problems.

To answer your RAM questions, quad-channel motherboards are rare and expensive, your laptop will be dual-channel. Even so you should not mix RAM because the timings of all sticks need to match - even across different channels. I notice that in these four dumps you only have the two Crucial 16GB sticks installed (the CT16G4SFRA32A.C8FE) so we can discount mixed RAM as the cause in these BSODs.

I have very little confidence in the ability of the person who put this laptop together for you. If there is any way you can return it and get your money back I would do so.

 

[NikkiXoLynnn]

I now have the minidumps, thank you. Based on the dumps I think the most likely cause of these BSODs is your NVMe drive. Two of the dumps (021024-9390-01.dmp and 020824-11281-01.dmp) fail with a 0xC0000185 exception code, that's a
the I/O device reported an I/O error exception. In the first of those dumps the error seem to occur during the nt!MiWaitForInPageComplete function call and whilst waiting for a read from the system drive. The other dump seems to have been buffering data read in from the network, but it fails whilst reading pages from the system drive.

Another dump is a CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED and they are almost always hardware related. Typically it's RAM that causes these BSODs but it could be the system drive also - although there is no evidence of that in this dump. However, the dump does seem to be corrupted somehow, the debugger fails to load it fully, and that too suggests a system drive issue perhaps.

The fourth dump is an INTERNAL_POWER_ERROR, indicating that the system failed to complete a power transition in a timely manner. That's also almost always a hardware problem. It's not possible from this dump to identify what failed the power transition.

In summary, there certainly seems to be some sort of hardware issue with this laptop. I'd query the NVMe drive based on these dumps. It may just need removing and re-seating. That often fixes many niggly problems.

To answer your RAM questions, quad-channel motherboards are rare and expensive, your laptop will be dual-channel. Even so you should not mix RAM because the timings of all sticks need to match - even across different channels. I notice that in these four dumps you only have the two Crucial 16GB sticks installed (the CT16G4SFRA32A.C8FE) so we can discount mixed RAM as the cause in these BSODs.

I have very little confidence in the ability of the person who put this laptop together for you. If there is any way you can return it and get your money back I would do so.

I mean, ASUS put it together. The computer shop switched out the drive, ram, and liquid metal. The rest is just factory made ASUS. I got it in 2021 so my warranty ran out in 2022. So, I should assume it’s not something I can correct on my own at this point? Or still try the suggestions given earlier? I guess it can’t hurt to try them and also open it up and make sure nothing obvious is wrong in there. I spent 700 plus 30 tip at the previous computer repair place for those modifications. The laptop was 1,500 with the original parts. I’m worried about doing this again and ending up with a total that could have gotten me a brand new laptop instead. 🥺

Should I find a new computer repair place and JUST have them look at it and try to diagnose what exactly is failing then decide if it’s worth trying to fix? Plus, if the hardware that’s failing is one of the 3 things that guy replaced less than 4 months ago I think I’d need to talk to them about that bill…

I appreciate the assistance! It’s helpful having a rough idea of what I’m up against before I make anymore costly decisions

 

[ubuysa]

The computer shop switched out the drive, ram, and liquid metal.

And based on the dumps I've see the problem is with one (or more) of these devices

Firstly, disable hibernation completely. Open a command prompt and enter the following command...

powercfg -h off

If it still BSODs then it's most likely the RAM, and I think you have another set of RAM sticks that you bought? It may be worth swapping out the existing RAM and replace it with the two sticks that you bought. If the problem remains then it's less likely to be RAM related (although if they're not on the QVL for the board there will always be a question mark against them).

I'm still concerned that Windows was cloned onto the drive rather than clean installed, I've seen way too many problems caused by cloning that didn't work quite as expected. You have two courses of action open to you here...

1. Back everything up and clean install Windows onto that drive.
2. Start Windows in Safe Mode and see whether it still BSODs.

By 'clean installing' I mean this...

1. Boot a USB drive containing the latest Windows 11 installation files (use create installation media)
2. Select a 'custom install'
3. Delete all UEFI partitions on that drive
4. Select (highlight) the unallocated space and click the Next button, the installer will do the rest.
5. After installation run Windows Update repeatedly (and across any reboots) until no more updates are found
6. Then check in Device Manager that no devices are shown with a yellow triangle containing a black exclamation mark next to them. If any are then look in 'view optional updates' for any suitable drivers there and install them.
7. Now test the system, BEFORE you install anything else, to see whether you can make it BSOD

If you start Windows in Safe Mode...

• Safe Mode loads a stripped-down version of Windows with only critical services and drivers loaded.
• No third-party drivers are loaded (except for networking) so many devices will not work properly (or at all). Your display will be low-res because you'll be using the basic Windows display driver.
• You will not be able to play games or do any useful work whilst in Safe Mode. It's purely a testing more to see whether the hardware is causing the BSODs.
• Run in Safe Mode for as long as you can, but for a few hours at least. You can leave it idle in Safe Mode but do not let it shutdown, sleep, or hibernate.
• If it BSODs, freezes, or crashes in Safe Mode then you (almost) certainly have a hardware problem

 

[NikkiXoLynnn]

And based on the dumps I've see the problem is with one (or more) of these devices

Firstly, disable hibernation completely. Open a command prompt and enter the following command...

powercfg -h off

If it still BSODs then it's most likely the RAM, and I think you have another set of RAM sticks that you bought? It may be worth swapping out the existing RAM and replace it with the two sticks that you bought. If the problem remains then it's less likely to be RAM related (although if they're not on the QVL for the board there will always be a question mark against them).

I'm still concerned that Windows was cloned onto the drive rather than clean installed, I've seen way too many problems caused by cloning that didn't work quite as expected. You have two courses of action open to you here...

1. Back everything up and clean install Windows onto that drive.
2. Start Windows in Safe Mode and see whether it still BSODs.

By 'clean installing' I mean this...

1. Boot a USB drive containing the latest Windows 11 installation files (use create installation media)
2. Select a 'custom install'
3. Delete all UEFI partitions on that drive
4. Select (highlight) the unallocated space and click the Next button, the installer will do the rest.
5. After installation run Windows Update repeatedly (and across any reboots) until no more updates are found
6. Then check in Device Manager that no devices are shown with a yellow triangle containing a black exclamation mark next to them. If any are then look in 'view optional updates' for any suitable drivers there and install them.
7. Now test the system, BEFORE you install anything else, to see whether you can make it BSOD

If you start Windows in Safe Mode...

• Safe Mode loads a stripped-down version of Windows with only critical services and drivers loaded.
• No third-party drivers are loaded (except for networking) so many devices will not work properly (or at all). Your display will be low-res because you'll be using the basic Windows display driver.
• You will not be able to play games or do any useful work whilst in Safe Mode. It's purely a testing more to see whether the hardware is causing the BSODs.
• Run in Safe Mode for as long as you can, but for a few hours at least. You can leave it idle in Safe Mode but do not let it shutdown, sleep, or hibernate.
• If it BSODs, freezes, or crashes in Safe Mode then you (almost) certainly have a hardware problem

Ah, ok! I didn’t catch that part. I thought you meant it could be any of the hardware rather than pointing towards one of his jobs. Was going to sell the ram sticks once I switched them but I’ll be keeping them now in case they are the problem. They can take them back. I turned off hibernate today. Hadn’t been using it since that day, anyway. A bit scared of it ATM. I’m just shutting it down when I finish with it. I’ve used it a few hours a day most days so far without new blue screens but all I’m doing is organizing and deleting files so it’s very minimal use.

I got my new RAM! So I’ll make sure to find the motherboard number when I open it and check it with both kits. I looked in BIOS but that line that should have been there for motherboard just wasn’t so I’m still unsure about that info. Maybe because my BIOS is outdated. Once I know my new RAM is good I’ll install it with a tutorial, check the SSD’s just to make sure they look alright. I’m not entirely sure where the liquid metal is even located? I never saw it the two time I’ve been in there but I’ll look up a tutorial for that as well and if it looks like I can get in there and just take a peek without hurting anything I’ll do that. See if it looks normal.

Then I’ll do the windows install. Just want to confirm one more time so I don’t screw it up. My E drive in the slot next to the C drive will NOT be wiped, right? Just the drive with Windows on it? I have my most valuable data backed up from E, anyway. But I might run out of space on my external if I have to backup the entirety of E as well.

If things go badly, I did find another computer place. 2 hours away instead of 1 but they have like 6 times the amount of good reviews as the other place had and they do their diagnostic for free! So if things take a turn after I do all this I’ll have a place to take it to. Thank you so much for the help! I’ll try to remember to pop back in with an update on how things went

 

[ubuysa]

Before you install Windows disconnect all drives except the one on which you intend to install WIndows. Not only will this ensure that you don;t accidentally overwrite a data drive, but it also stop the installer placing the boot data on a different drive to the system drive (which it will do if you let it).