Fall Creators Update frequent Blue Screen of Death

[Zhenren Zhou]

Has anyone had Blue Screen of Death issue with the Fall Creators Update?

So, I actually have quite a long history to tell regarding the Fall Creators Update on my laptop (ASUS Strix Republic of Gamers GL502VS). After running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update for about a year (for some reason, the Creators Update never showed up in Windows Update, i did get the courtesy screen that asked what options i would like regarding the CU after more than 4 months it was released). My stock NVMe SSD died on me.

I initially thought it was due to corrupt Windows boot file so I took my laptop to a Microsoft Store to have them do a clean installation and asked them to install the Creators Update. So they did, and I was quite happy to see my laptop back to life at the Store. Until I got home and saw one of my drives was missing. They installed the CU on my stock HDD.. After running diskpart in Command Prompt, i confirmed my "unlikely assumption" that my NVMe SSD failed.

I lived with that HDD noise for about 3 weeks while I was saving money to buy a new NVMe SSD. A week after I got my laptop back, the FCU was released and Windows Update did its thing on release day. So, I ran 2 weeks with FCU on my HDD, and during that period, everything was fine. The OS was stable, no BSoD.

Last week, I was finally able to purchase a Corsair Force MP500 SSD. Despite many claims on the internet that it was impossible to do Windows Installation on that SSD, disk cloning was the only option. I was able to do Windows Installation on the SSD without difficulties, using the USB Drive installation media i created.

The problems, came after the first clean installation, first, I failed to install tools and drivers from ASUS website, due to the clean OS had no Visual C++ Redistributable 2010 X86 version, multiple errors occurs, the system installed an old NVIDIA GeForce driver in the meantime. Anyway, after going through all that, I was finally able to get everything up and running.

However, in the next two days, 6 Blue Screen of Deaths occurred.. Along with the choppy UI animations.. I went through system settings, and found that somehow my monitor settings was "extend these displays." So I set it back to "show only on 1." For a while things seemed fine, animations were smooth. During a battle in WoT on the third night, my laptop went BSoD for the 7th time..

So, I decided that was enough and did a second clean installation of FCU. This time I pre-downloaded the latest NVIDIA GeForce driver, and Visual C++ Redistributable 2010 X86. Right after the installation, I installed the GeForce driver then the Visual C++, and went to ASUS website for drivers and tools my laptop needs. I've never connected my second monitor ever since.

The BSoD still happened, but only while I was using the laptop's speakers instead of my headphone (Sennheiser GSP 350). I like to switch my default audio devices. So far, every BSoD including the 7th time, occurred exactly while I was using my laptop's speakers. I could go hours with my headphone without any issues.

I know there's some under the hood audio playback changes in the FCU since I am a myTube! beta tester. And since my laptop's speakers utilizes the Realtek audio driver and my headphone utilizes its own driver and tool. I don't know if the BSoDs I have been having are somehow related to the playback changes?

This is only my guess so far. What do you think might be the cause of my BSoDs? Anyone else have had similar issues? Or any issues with the FCU?

 

[pankaj981]

Have you tried checking in event viewer to see if your hardware/software are logging any errors? Bsod can happen due to various reasons so it's apparent that unless the cause is known you wont know how to troubleshoot it.

 

[Zhenren Zhou]

Have you tried checking in event viewer to see if your hardware/software are logging any errors? Bsod can happen due to various reasons so it's apparent that unless the cause is known you wont know how to troubleshoot it.

There are hundreds if not thousands of events in event viewer. How am I supposed to determine which ones are the causes of the BSoDs?

 

[pankaj981]

Look for errors, I usually start there.

 

[mjperry51]

There are hundreds if not thousands of events in event viewer. How am I supposed to determine which ones are the causes of the BSoDs?

Time they occurred for one. Filter by type (Error and Critical), then sort by time. Will help narrow your search. . .

 

[Zhenren Zhou]

Time they occurred for one. Filter by type (Error and Critical), then sort by time. Will help narrow your search. . .

Do you look for it after the BSoD has occurred (I assume everything will be scrapped by then) or do you have to constantly monitor it even though you don't know whether or not it will happen?

 

[mjperry51]

Do you look for it after the BSoD has occurred (I assume everything will be scrapped by then) or do you have to constantly monitor it even though you don't know whether or not it will happen?

Just note on a watch when the next BSOD happens. When you reboot, check Event Viewer (probably System, but also check Application). Look for the most recent errors - that will help narrow the search. . .

 

[ousooner314]

I've used this in the past - https://www.wikihow.com/Read-Dump-Files. It requires downloading a program called Blue Screen View. The program will automatically look for the minidump file Windows creates during a BSOD and show you exactly which driver caused it. Hopefully upgrading those drivers will fix your BSOD issues. Good luck!

 

[Zhenren Zhou]

Thank you. For the past few days, I've been sticking with my headphone only. And never once there was a Blue Screen of Death. So, I am pretty sure the problem lies with using my laptop's speakers, and driver for that piece of hardware could be the issue. I will make some preparation in a few days and switch my default audio device to my laptop's speakers, if BSoD happens again, i will use the methods you have provided to read those error information and dump files.

 

[Zhenren Zhou]

Guys, there have been at least 5 BSoD occurred since my last post. They appeared without any pattern. It could be i was letting my computer sit idly, it could be during an intense gaming session, it could be while I was watching a Blu-ray disc movie. It doesn't matter if i was using my headphone or not. It just happened, without any kind of apparent cause.

I have followed your advice to check event viewer right after a crash, but i don't see any specific errors or events that i know would lead to a blue screen. The only thing that caught my attention was that dump creation would fail. Whenever a Blue Screen appears, the laptop would freeze for a few seconds, this freeze would be longer if it was during gaming, then the laptop would still respond to some command like pressing the Win key. But ultimately the blue screen would show, and the percentage number would stay at 0% and it will restart immediately. In event log, a log that said dump file failed to create during dump creation would show, and it would timed right around the system crash.

I have done hardware check, there doesn't seem to be any faulty hardware, i have installed any available drivers i could find, and they were listed as latest on either the OEM website or the hardware websites.

Anyone got any ideas? Or is it really that Fall Creators Update has some fundamental issues?

 

[pankaj981]

Try disabling auto restart on BSOD:
https://www.kapilarya.com/disable-automatic-restart-after-failure-in-windows-10

And then look for the message on screen. This will most certainly show you whether its software or hardware related, it might also give a code. Note that down and see if you can find something on the internet. If you can't find anything, next thing I would do it start disabling the sound card and see if that helps. Also boot in safe mode and see if you are still experiencing crashes.

 

[Tpeterson32]

I installed the Falls Creators update patch released not even two weeks ago and now I cannot even get into my laptop. It boots up and I get the dreaded BSOD, restarts and then goes into recovery mode meaning it will go into auto repair. Tried to fix it using restore points and no dice. The only option I have left are to completely reset windows and lose everything meaning all my music, photos, files, data, and applications on my hard drive just to get my laptop up and running. Any suggestions?