BSOD When NOT Gaming

It is often easier to use another operating system in normal resolution rather than low resolution safe mode.

When available update the progress with post #76.

Then monitor the computer using reliability monitor:

gmahadhika said:

Fair, it might be a hardware problem. Funny thing is, BSOD literally never happened when I'm running a heavy game program. Not once, in its 2,5 years life time. It is why I haven't bought a new laptop, because it performed well for the reason I bought it in the first place (gaming). It always happened when the laptop is idling/opening youtube on chrome/opening MS excel.

Do you mean I should at least try to run Windows in safe mode for like 8 hours or something?

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You could try running prime 95 in the background, some are reporting the issue when the bios undervolts the cpu, when idle. happens to me, if I run prime 95 in the background, never crashes, only when it's not doing much.

So, a little update for my problem. I gave up troubleshooting the problem by myself, so I brought my laptop to a 3rd party laptop repair shop. At first, the tech guy doubt that he can find the problem because the BSOD seemed to be too random.

A few days later, he asked me whether I ever had a problem connecting to a wifi source and I said yes, as a matter of fact I did have that problem. On that basis, he *suspected* and assumed the wifi card is causing said BSODs.

I have my laptop back now without its wifi card attached, so I am using a USB Wifi dongle atm. I am still testing whether it's true that wifi card can cause BSODs.

Is it possible at all that a wifi card causes BSOD? If it is, I hope the wifi card *does* broke but not the socket.

gmahadhika said:

Is it possible at all that a wifi card causes BSOD? If it is, I hope the wifi card *does* broke but not the socket.

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Any device driver can cause a BSOD, as well as faulty RAMs, loose connections, power spikes, failing hardware etc.

Good to know. I'll be testing this for the next few days.

No dice, it BSOD'd again this afternoon, with the stop code Driver_irql_not_less_or_equal.

I'll just give this back to the repair shop then.

Possible CPU failure or bad caps. I also noted that AMD CPUs can get flaky at 85C-90C, even though they aren't supposed to be flaky at those temps. Even more likely on desktop versions of Ryzen. Machine check exception error or no machine check exception error, that can be the symptom of that issue. Even when a machine check exception with "Cache Hierarchy Error" as the reason, is a very common Ryzen error.

OTOH, I saw something like this too, with an Athlon II from 2009, on an HP CQ-61 back in 2013 and then it failed in late-2014 with a flash-of-death code, apparently for CPU failure. A flash-of-death/blink-of-death is usually not seen on desktop motherboards and are more common with TVs, to signal a hardware error. Especially plasma and some LCDs. (flashing or blinking LED underneath the screen, near the power button or on the power button)

In 2013, on above-mentioned laptop, got a BSOD with no overclock, as it was a laptop, then in late-2014, it was sent back to me in unbootable state with an LED flashing/blinking.

So nothing can be done about CPU failure right? Unless something can be done regarding that bad caps?

jamminIT said:

You could try running prime 95 in the background, some are reporting the issue when the bios undervolts the cpu, when idle. happens to me, if I run prime 95 in the background, never crashes, only when it's not doing much.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/m9c3nx

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+1

I've dealt with a few AMD CPUs that don't transition from low power C-States to normal running C-States fast enough. One workaround is to disable C-States in the BIOS (If you can, probably not available in a laptop). Another workaround is to run with the built-in Windows High Performance power plan. That stops the CPU entering low power C-States, but it does mean a noticeable increase in power use and reduced battery run time. A third workaround is to change the Processor Power Management setting in whatever power option profile you use so that both the minimum and maximum processor state are 99%. That also stops the CPU entering low power C states (with a corresponding increase in power usage of course).

Testing the computer with another operating system is free.

Restoring a Windows 11 image generally takes less than one hour.


Why not perform free testing?


Are you planning to replace the motherboard to replace any attached components or did the repair shop report that they could replace any component on the laptop's motherboard?

gmahadhika said:

So nothing can be done about CPU failure right? Unless something can be done regarding that bad caps?

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Most likely, bad caps in the PSU.

Testing with another OS, such as a Linux distro - which can run directly off the USB drive and doesn't need to be installed - is a very good idea. If that doesn't run clean then you absolutely have a hardware issue, and if it's not RAM then it's most likely the CPU.

I really would try one (or all) of the workarounds I suggested as well.