[SOLVED] Very new PC blue screens on reinstallation / clean install of Windows 11

[frepbh]

Hello,

Recently, I’ve been running Windows 11 Dev channel builds on my PC with no issues, but I still decided a few days ago to go back to stable, which requires a clean install.

I then started the reinstallation, which proceeded as normal, until after it needed to restart my PC, where it then blue screened. Then it returned me to my previous build saying that it could not complete the installation due to an error.

Then I tried going through my bios and resetting things to default and repeating, with no success.

After a few tries, I got it to install successfully. It then booted into the normal Windows 11 setup/introduction screen, where things started to get more strange. It worked for about a minute or two, but then it would blue screen with either the error HYPERVISOR_ERROR, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION, an invalid stack error I can’t remember the exact name of, or the classic IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.
Then I tried going through the BIOS and resetting everything again, disabling all E-cores, disabling hyper threading and virtualization just as a desperate attempt. Nothing worked.

Then I tried creating a bootable USB using the official media creation tool. This time the gui is obviously different but the problem about the same. It works for about a minute, but then it blue screens when I press a button.

Then I tried rolling back my bios version to the one I had before, made a new installation USB and cleared the CMOS just to be sure. Still no luck. I also ran the motherboards built-in MemTest86 and it found no issues (although I did not test the RAM sticks separately, which I am doing now).

Which brings me to where I am now, I am now stuck with the installation media and no windows, and can’t get it installed before it blue screens. And I can’t really think of anything more to do, nor do I know where the issue lies.

Specs:
ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero
i9 12900K
2x16GB DDR5 Corsair Dominator Platinum 5200Mhz
ASUS RTX 3090 Strix
Samsung 980 PRO 1TB SSD (system drive)
Kingston NV1 2TB
6TB Toshiba HDD I can’t remember the name of.
SilverStone SX1000 1000W PSU


Thank you very much in advance.

 

[Colif]

HYPERVISOR_ERROR,

thats not normal. Most of the other BSOD are normal in that I see them a lot around here. it seems to be ram related.

have you tried taking c drive out and install on the 2tb drive and see if you get further.
how far after the restart does it get?

first time I ever seen memtest86 built into a bios. I can't complain.

Do you have newest BIOS on motherboard?
did you make a new installer? could be a bad installer, try making another on a new USB
are you still using Insider builds or RTM?

most of them could be driver related but you shouldn't be bsod all the time on a new install. I wonder if Asus Armory crate had installed itself on 1st restart. hmm. no way of knowing now.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

If this is a clean installation then why did it return you to your previous build? I don’t understand that comment. When you do a clean install you need to format the drive before the windows installs its files and the installer allows you to do that. Did you wipe out all the partitions and let win11 create new ones on the boot drive?

Reading your explanation it appears to me that you did not perform a clean installation

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-do-clean-install-windows-11

 

[frepbh]

how far after the restart does it get?

Nowhere, My C drive is completely wiped, so it has nothing to boot into, except if I have the installation USB inserted of course. But then it’s just rinse and repeat, I can get along a few slides, but then it blue screens.

Do you have newest BIOS on motherboard?

I did, but I reverted it to a revision back, since I thought it could’ve been a problem with the new one.

did you make a new installer? could be a bad installer, try making another on a new USB

Yep, I’ve tried two different USB’s.

are you still using Insider builds or RTM?

I made the USB’s using the official media creation tool provided by Microsoft, so I assume it installs the latest stable (?)

have you tried taking c drive out and install on the 2tb drive and see if you get further.

Might have a go at that later, sounds like a fine idea.

 

[frepbh]

If this is a clean installation then why did it return you to your previous build? I don’t understand that comment. When you do a clean install you need to format the drive before the windows installs its files and the installer allows you to do that. Did you wipe out all the partitions and let win11 create new ones on the boot drive?

Reading your explanation it appears to me that you did not perform a clean installation

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-do-clean-install-windows-11

Apologies if I didn’t write clearly.
I started by doing a normal reinstall through the installation assistant, with no USB.
It was only after that failed (and it returned me) that I tried a “clean reinstall” with a USB.

 

[frepbh]

I just ran a full MemTest86 “course” on both RAM stick, one at a time, with no errors at all. I’m now running one with all RAM sticks in as normal, with no errors so far.

 

[Colif]

what is top of boot order?
if there is nothing on the ssd, it shouldn't have anything in boot order

generally helps to only have 1 drive attached when installing windows. Not that it causes bsod, more to stop windows putting parts of itself on other drives

try this
put Installer into PC
boot into bios
go to advanced view/boot tab
scroll to bottom and pick boot override
pick USB from list and PC should restart and run installer
on the next restart, it should use the ssd.

I see this a lot, on Asus boards. The install will get to the restart phase and then not do what its meant to do, which is continue running installer. Instead it stops and you get weird errors. You can't do anything from here apart from start again, as windows isn't finished installing yet.

boot override = page 86 - https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/13MANUAL/E19569_ROG_Z690_Series_BIOS_Manual_EM_WEB.pdf

boot override, as name suggests, lets you boot from a device one time, and the next boot it swaps to defaults. Handy if you don't want to change boot order, just boot from a USB.

 

[frepbh]

what is top of boot order?
if there is nothing on the ssd, it shouldn't have anything in boot order

generally helps to only have 1 drive attached when installing windows. Not that it causes bsod, more to stop windows putting parts of itself on other drives

try this
put Installer into PC
boot into bios
go to advanced view/boot tab
scroll to bottom and pick boot override
pick USB from list and PC should restart and run installer
on the next restart, it should use the ssd.

I see this a lot, on Asus boards. The install will get to the restart phase and then not do what its meant to do, which is continue running installer. Instead it stops and you get weird errors. You can't do anything from here apart from start again, as windows isn't finished installing yet.

boot override = page 86 - https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/13MANUAL/E19569_ROG_Z690_Series_BIOS_Manual_EM_WEB.pdf

boot override, as name suggests, lets you boot from a device one time, and the next boot it swaps to defaults. Handy if you don't want to change boot order, just boot from a USB.

Sadly I’ve already been using boot override to boot into the USB installer :/

I’ve also just installed Windows on another PC using the same USB so the USB should be fine.

 

[frepbh]

what is top of boot order?
if there is nothing on the ssd, it shouldn't have anything in boot order

and yes, there is nothing in the boot order. If I go into bios with the USB inserted then that appears as the only thing. And even if I remove it and use boot override it sadly doesn’t change anything

 

[Colif]

can you put anything in boot order? say the ssd or if its a choice, windows boot manager.
does the installer run or just get errors?

could try installing win 10 and see if its any better. can easily upgrade from there... shouldn't make any difference though.

 

[frepbh]

can you put anything in boot order? say the ssd or if its a choice, windows boot manager.
does the installer run or just get errors?

could try installing win 10 and see if its any better. can easily upgrade from there... shouldn't make any difference though.

Nope, boot order is completely empty (except for the installation USB).

I can boot into the installer, but it will blue screen either about the time when I get to the partition/drive screen, or if I just sit around for about a minute and then try pressing any buttons or sometimes just moving the mouse.

I’ve actually just tried a Win10 installation USB, but it’s sadly just the same. Although I’m thinking about trying to install a Linux distro to see how that behaves, but that is a pretty inexperienced area for me.

 

[frepbh]

The strange thing really is that the PC has been working just fine the last couple of months.

I built it about 3-4 months ago, and even though I did have some blue screen problems it was either fixed through a bios update or a regular windows reinstall. Since then it’s been running fine with no issues, both games and creative applications.

It’s just since that reinstall after the Dev build that everything turned upside down. I just don’t understand how that should suddenly break everything, since if it was a driver issue, would those drivers not get removed when you clear the system drive?

 

[Colif]

i know motherboard has memtest 86 but... i would be tempted to run the USB version and see if it agrees.

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

Most of the time if it crashes before you even choose a drive, its ram.

If all the BSOD had been drivers, it shouldn't be happening now. I am pretty sure the installer doesn't run anything we would describe as a driver during install process.

there should be no trace of the install on PC now.

USB shouldn't be in boot order. that is part of reason it doesn't go past the restart.

I assume you aren't overclocked? I would remove it if you are.

 

[frepbh]

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

alright then, il go ahead and do that.

and yes, no OC

 

[Colif]

take your time, I have to go to sleep soon. But I look and see what i might be missing tomorrow.

 

[frepbh]

take your time, I have to go to sleep soon. But I look and see what i might be missing tomorrow.

I will do and thank you very much for your help so far
Sleep well

 

[Deleted member 14196]

it's like bios doesn't see your ssd? make sure it's connected correctly and getting power

 

[frepbh]

it's like bios doesn't see your ssd? make sure it's connected correctly and getting power

It is showing up in bios, just not the boot order, because there is no OS on the drive that it can load since it has been wiped

 

[frepbh]

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

Well, it just finished and the results are just the same. 4 passes on each and 0 errors :/

 

[frepbh]

Well, I tried installing Ubuntu too as a last ditch and it did the expected, it also did not work.

Although with boot codes enabled it’s a bit more verbose than windows (obviously).
It when from an issue where CPU#0 and CPU#7 were stuck spinning for more than 200 seconds, to some kernel panic about an idle task attempted to be killed, to a page fault (like windows), and to what I would consider garbage output as shown in the pictures below.

https://imgur.com/a/DVehDrR

View: https://imgur.com/a/DVehDrR


I think it might be safe to say that this is a hardware issue (?), but I’m not entirely sure where it lies. The first issue is obviously CPU related, but stuff like the garbage output seems to me like RAM issues, but the millions of MemTest86 runs give 0 errors.

 

[Colif]

Lets see what Prime 95 shows, it tests CPU & Ram

Prime 95 bootable - https://www.infopackets.com/news/10113/how-fix-bootable-prime95-stress-test-hardware
Prime 95 how to Guide: http://www.playtool.com/pages/prime95/prime95.html


I don't know Linux but I seen those before,
https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/linux-kernel-panic

https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/kernel-crash-dump

page faults are just when CPU has to access ram, normal operation of any operating system that uses virtual memory. Just badly named.
As are hard page faults which are when CPU had to access page file or storage

Ubuntu just confims its not windows. Strange timing just as you reinstall windows.

 

[frepbh]

Lets see what Prime 95 shows, it tests CPU & Ram

good idea, I’ll get on that now

 

[frepbh]

Lets see what Prime 95 shows, it tests CPU & Ram

apologies for the delay, suddenly a bunch of stuff just cropped up.

I’ve tried creating a bootable USB with that UBCD tool on it, and sadly it seems the PC won’t even boot it. It simply goes into the bios. And if I choose it from the boot override, then the screen just flashes black for a second.

I first made the USB using their own tool embedded in the ISO, and the second time I tried just burning the ISO with Rufus. Both had the result above.

 

[frepbh]

Lets see what Prime 95 shows, it tests CPU & Ram

Prime 95 bootable - https://www.infopackets.com/news/10113/how-fix-bootable-prime95-stress-test-hardware
Prime 95 how to Guide: http://www.playtool.com/pages/prime95/prime95.html


I don't know Linux but I seen those before,
https://www.redhat.com/sysadmin/linux-kernel-panic

https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/kernel-crash-dump

page faults are just when CPU has to access ram, normal operation of any operating system that uses virtual memory. Just badly named.
As are hard page faults which are when CPU had to access page file or storage

Ubuntu just confims its not windows. Strange timing just as you reinstall windows.

I think the only real option left might be returning some parts?
If so, is it safe to say return motherboard and CPU, and then keep the rest?

 

[Colif]

Isn't there another choice? like ask a repair shop to look at it and maybe narrow down cause without just guessing? I don't like guessing, I have seen people replace entire PC before and still somehow have problems.
Repair shop should have spare working parts they can swap in to isolate the cause.