Question Weirdest BSOD I've ever encountered after AVG scan!

[ftlepore]

This is the weirdest issue I've ever experienced, and I've been building and troubleshooting my own PCs for like 20 years.

Last night I was running an AVG Free Deep Scan. When I got to about 30%, my computer blue screened and restarted. Upon restarting, I got the following error message:

"Your PC/Device needs to be repaired.
The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.
File: \Windows\system32\winload.efi
Error code: 0xc0000225"

When I restarted, I got a similar, but different message:

"A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed.
Error code: 0xc000000e"

Every time I restarted, I got the same message.

HOWEVER, when I shut down the computer completely, and started it from a powered down state, it WOULD boot up. Then, this morning, I went to wake up my computer from hibernate, and it was off. I tried turning it on, and once again, it wouldn't boot into Windows. It would boot me into a screen asking which keyboard I wanted to use, then told me I needed to repair. Of course, like every experience I've ever had, none of the options in the Windows Recovery features had any effect.

I assumed something was wonky with my UEFI partition, so I tried everything I could to straighten it out, including the following:

chkdsk /f
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot
DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

A couple of these got some weird results. I spent an hour this morning trying to boot, and nothing worked, until I tried the following series of commands:

diskpart
list disk
select disk [N]
list vol
select vol [N]
assign letter=N:
exit
N:
bcdboot c:\windows /s N: /f UEFI

This seemed to work, and we were able to boot up. I thought everything was fine after this, but I still wanted to make sure, so I ran another deep scan on all three of my drives. It took about two hours, it found nothing, but it did say "we were unable to scan some files." Wasn't thrilled about that, so I decided to scan each drive individually, starting with C, which is the OS boot drive. A couple minutes into scanning C, and I get the blue screen again.

This time when it reboots, it goes straight into BIOS and doesn't even SEE my boot drive (Crucial - T700 2TB NVMe). It just doesn't exist. So I plug in a USB drive with Windows Installation Media on it and check DISKPART again. Just like the BIOS, my M.2 doesn't even show up.

I once again turn off the computer completely, wait a couple seconds, then boot up again. It boots into Windows completely fine.

I have no idea what's causing the PC to crash when scanning with AVG, or why the drive is either unable to boot or completely invisible afterward until I perform a full power off.

Has anyone heard of this before? Really appreciate any help or insight!

My build is as follows:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Motherboard: ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X670E HERO (WiFi 6E) Socket AM5 (LGA 1718)
Ram: 2x G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB Series (Intel XMP) 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin SDRAM DDR5 6000 CL30-40-40-96 (F5-6000J3040F16GA2-TZ5RS)
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 GAMING OC 24G (GV-N4090GAMING OC-24GD)
NVMe SSD (Primary): Crucial - T700 2TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 5x4 NVMe
NVMe SSD (Storage): WD - BLACK SN850X 4TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe
Extra HDD: Seagate BarraCuda Pro 6TB 7200 RPM 256MB Cache (ST6000DM004)

 

[ftlepore]

Update: When I tried to run an Extended Device Self-Test in the Crucial Storage Executive app in Windows, I walked away when the test was at about 20%. When I checked on the computer about an hour later, it was in the BIOS and had no boot drive listed.

Starting to wonder if the Crucial - T700 is bad, even though it's less than 2 months old.

 

[ftlepore]

Looking a little deeper, I downloaded CrystalDiskInfo to test the drive. Immediately upon opening the app, I see that it's in the red at 72 degrees C. And that's WITH the huge factory heat sink on it!

According to the internet:

"The Crucial T700 Gen 5 SSD encounters heat management issues, particularly regarding the controller and NAND. When the temperature reaches 90 degrees Celsius, the SSD performs a thermal shutdown, requiring a power cycle refresh to restore functionality (your data remains intact)."

The power cycling comment makes total sense, and seems in line with what's happening: why a restart doesn't fix it, but a full shut down and turn on does. I imagine the AVG scan and the Self Test were bumping up the temp.

Not sure what to do though, since these are temps with a pretty large heat sink on the drive.

 

[stonecarver]

Not sure what to do though, since these are temps with a pretty large heat sink on the drive.

I'm not sure what surface area your heatsinks have if there is room to install a mini fan to top of it or the combo's below . It would pull that heat ways much faster and keep drive way under thermals.

I keep seeing on the forum post after post after post glitches. stuttering, BSOD ............ and like you said in your last post temps on your drive. Not saying drives are bad but if temps are high you might just be on to the solution.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

 

[ftlepore]

I'm not sure what surface area your heatsinks have if there is room to install a mini fan to top of it or the combo's below . It would pull that heat ways much faster and keep drive way under thermals.

I keep seeing on the forum post after post after post glitches. stuttering, BSOD ............ and like you said in your last post temps on your drive. Not saying drives are bad but if temps are high you might just be on to the solution.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Yeah, the T700 comes with one of the bigger heat sinks I've ever seen on an M.2 drive.

I also keep seeing things that reinforce my conclusion, so I'm nearly 100% certain this is the issue:

"A reader pointed out to the editorial team that Crucial has now released the new firmware version PACR5102 for the T700 SSD. But a check in the editorial office revealed no change in behavior: If the temperature gets too high, the T700 simply switches off."

"The Crucial T700 Gen 5 SSD encounters heat management issues, particularly regarding the controller and NAND. When the temperature reaches 90 degrees Celsius, the SSD performs a thermal shutdown, requiring a power cycle refresh to restore functionality (your data remains intact)"

I'm currently just browsing the internet and idling at 73C.