BSOD help needed

[Skippy2010]

i am hoping someone can help me with yet another problem i have with my pc. this will be the third time it has had a serious issue and i have had it about 2 and a half years.
i first had a BSOD about 3 days ago and have errors such as amdppm.sys failed, KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION, Unexpected Kernel Mode Trap and IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL.

today i have gone through the forums looking for advice on this and so far have
checked the memory using the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool, all ok, but not memtest86 as it will not stay on for longer than a couple of minutes now.
done a clean windows install from a USB
installed all windows and optional updates
installed the chipset drivers
ran DDU and did a clean install of geforce game drivers
changed the amdppm.sys start value to 4
and the pc still crashes with a BSOD and an error code.

i am going to assume that it is hardware issue and i do not know what else to do with it.

it has already been back to PCS and had the power supply and CPU replaced almost 2 years to the day.
i have uploaded memory dumps and mindumps, system info, driver info, pc specs, the 2 previous RMA reports and event logs, here

Microsoft OneDrive

if someone could have a look for me please and let me know if there's anything else i can do before i send it back again i would be so grateful!
many thanks,

 

[SpyderTracks]

@ubuysa if you get the chance, could you take a look?

 

[ubuysa]

checked the memory using the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool, all ok, but not memtest86 as it will not stay on for longer than a couple of minutes now.

If it won't run the Memtest86 tool from a bootable USB drive, then you have a hardware issue. Memtest86 doesn't use Windows at all. If it won't stay on for any length of time then I'd wonder whether the PSU was the problem?

A number of your minidumps and one of the kernel dumps are 0x7F UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP errors, with a reason code of Exception_Double_Fault (0x8). This means that whilst an exception handler was running, to recover from a problem, another exception occurred whilst running the exception handler. These sorts of BSODs are almost always hardware related, mainly because almost all exception handlers are Microsoft code.

One of your minidumps is a classic 0xA IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, these are almost always caused by third-party drivers. In this case however, the page fault is generated by a Microsoft function...

ffff890d`491aa968  fffff802`21a08ee3 nt!KiPageFault+0x463
ffff890d`491aa970  00000000`00000000
ffff890d`491aa978  fffff802`21c06721 nt!ObpReferenceObjectByHandleWithTag+0x231

...and that strongly suggests a hardware failure of some sort.

The other kernel dump is more clear cut, it clearly identifies rcbottom.sys as the failing driver...

10: kd> knL
 # Child-SP          RetAddr               Call Site
00 ffffef02`042ae848 fffff805`7819104c     nt!KeBugCheckEx
01 ffffef02`042ae850 fffff805`781910ac     nt!RtlpHeapHandleError+0x40
02 ffffef02`042ae890 fffff805`78190cd9     nt!RtlpHpHeapHandleError+0x58
03 ffffef02`042ae8c0 fffff805`78027466     nt!RtlpLogHeapFailure+0x45
04 ffffef02`042ae8f0 fffff805`77e24424     nt!RtlpHpVsContextFree+0x201b56
05 ffffef02`042ae990 fffff805`785b5019     nt!ExFreeHeapPool+0x4d4
06 ffffef02`042aea70 fffff805`7b80d355     nt!ExFreePool+0x9
07 ffffef02`042aeaa0 fffff805`7b807555     rcbottom+0xd355
08 ffffef02`042aead0 fffff805`7b1b2d0d     rcbottom+0x7555
09 (Inline Function) --------`--------     Wdf01000!FxTimer::TimerHandler+0x8b
0a ffffef02`042aeb00 fffff805`77e1b269     Wdf01000!FxTimer::_FxTimerExtCallbackThunk+0xbd
0b ffffef02`042aeb50 fffff805`77e1aaa5     nt!KiExpireTimer2+0x429
0c ffffef02`042aec60 fffff805`77e34264     nt!KiTimer2Expiration+0x165
0d ffffef02`042aed20 fffff805`78001795     nt!KiRetireDpcList+0x874
0e ffffef02`042aefb0 fffff805`78001580     nt!KxRetireDpcList+0x5
0f ffffef02`075bdac0 fffff805`78000d05     nt!KiDispatchInterruptContinue
10 ffffef02`075bdaf0 fffff805`77ffba81     nt!KiDpcInterruptBypass+0x25
11 ffffef02`075bdb00 00007fff`27863663     nt!KiInterruptDispatchNoLockNoEtw+0xb1
12 0000002e`6417b1a0 00000000`00000000     0x00007fff`27863663

This is an AMD RAID driver, and if you're not using RAID then this driver shouldn't be loaded at all. You can't be using RAID because you only have one drive, so I'm at a loss to understand what this driver is doing there at all?

In any case, as I've mentioned, I don't think this is a Windows problem, because you can't get Memtest86 to run. To be clear, you are using Memtest86 from here: https://www.memtest86.com/, and you are making a bootable USB drive and booting that drive to run Memtest86?

I would suggest that you test each RAM stick in turn, so remove one stick, run Memtest86 and then swap sticks. See how that goes.

 

[Skippy2010]

i haven't tried to run memtest86 as i thought the pc needed to be running to do that and everytime i try to turn it on and log in ot crashed within a minute or so, but i will try that today.
i have a secondary HDD with games on, that was installed by PCS on one of its RMA returns, but i do not know what AMD RAID is though.
do i need to do anything with the rcbottom.sys driver?
any idea what hardware has failed or is it a cse of returning it yet again to PCS?
many thanks for your help with this.

 

[ubuysa]

Memtest86 runs completely outside of Windows. You download a zip file from here: https://www.memtest86.com/downloads/memtest86-usb.zip, instructions for using that downloaded file are here: https://www.memtest86.com/tech_creating-window.html.

You will need a blank USB drive (it doesn't need to be large, 1GB will do) - if there is data on the drive it will all be erased. You then extract the executable from the zip file and run it (with the blank USB drive plugged in), all you have to do is point the executable at the correct USB drive.

Note: If the above step fails or the PC crashes, then do this step on another PC/laptop. You can create the bootable USB on any PC.

Then you reboot and select that USB drive as the boot drive - you may need to modify the boot order in your BIOS to do this. Some BIOSes allow you to select the boot device without entering the BIOS - read the manual for your BIOS to see how to invoke this (it will likely be a Fn key).

Memtest86 will start running as soon as it boots, so don't click the mouse or press any keys. It will take an hour or more to complete all four iterations of the 13 memory tests on one stick of RAM at a time. Allow it to finish. If even a single error is reported then that RAM stick is bad.

Regarding rcbottom.sys, it's there because you probably have a RAID option selected in the BIOS. Again, read the manual for your BIOS and ensure that all RAID options are not selected.

 

[Skippy2010]

ok, i have made a bootable USB drive with memtest86 and have and booted from that drive to run Memtest86, and this will start to run except it will only run for about 9 or 10 minutes and then pc shuts down and reboots and repeats this. no errors found up until this point.
i have checked power settings and i can't find anything that would allow the pc or the monitor to sleep or shut down. any suggestions? pc keeps crashing in safe mode so i can't do much with it at all.

 

[Martinr36]

Do as @ubuysa suggested earlier then, try running memtest with only 1 stick of memory at a time in the pc and see if it still fails in the same way

 

[Skippy2010]

Regarding rcbottom.sys, it's there because you probably have a RAID option selected in the BIOS. Again, read the manual for your BIOS and ensure that all RAID options are not selected.

Bios says RAID isn't enabled as far as i can see.

Removed one stick of RAM and ran memtest again and this time with 1 stick it got further into Test 10 - sleeping, where it was restarting at around 10 minutes in when both sticks were in. But then shut down at restarted after running Memtest for 12 minutes.
Will swap the memory over and try again.

Would the errors that have been thrown up in all the logs cause it crash when just booting from the USB stick with memtest?

Should i manually update the bios?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Bios says RAID isn't enabled as far as i can see.

Removed one stick of RAM and ran memtest again and this time with 1 stick it got further into Test 10 - sleeping, where it was restarting at around 10 minutes in when both sticks were in. But then shut down at restarted after running Memtest for 12 minutes.
Will swap the memory over and try again.

Would the errors that have been thrown up in all the logs cause it crash when just booting from the USB stick with memtest?

Should i manually update the bios?

You need to test first before doing anything, it's a methodical process, as soon as you try doing things before you've finished testing, you'll introduce more variables and make it harder to troubleshoot.

You just take it step by step.

Firstly, test the RAM modules with Memtest.

 

[Skippy2010]

Ran memtest with the other stick of RAM and again PC shuts down at after 10-12 minutes of memtest running. 😤😭

Any ideas on what to do with it next please? 🤞

Have literally spent the last 5 days on this and am super fed up and beyond frustrated by it now. 😞

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ran memtest with the other stick of RAM and again PC shuts down at after 10-12 minutes of memtest running. 😤😭

Any ideas on what to do with it next please? 🤞

Have literally spent the last 5 days on this and am super fed up and beyond frustrated by it now. 😞

I'd RMA it, get PCS to do the testing.

Sounds to me like PSU

 

[Skippy2010]

I'd RMA it, get PCS to do the testing.

Sounds to me like PSU

ok thanks.
is it normal for so many things to need replacing so often? since i got it in july 2020, so far the CPU has been replaced, the motherboard and the GPU. i though the PSU had already been replaced but it hasn't.

 

[SpyderTracks]

ok thanks.
is it normal for so many things to need replacing so often? since i got it in july 2020, so far the CPU has been replaced, the motherboard and the GPU. i though the PSU had already been replaced but it hasn't.

Not something I can really comment on, totally depends on how it's being used, in what environment, if it's being cleaned regularly, if it's on a surge protector, there's so many variables that can contribute to issues like this.

It could also be if the PSU is not large enough for the build, that's not any error as such, it's just a poor design.

 

[ubuysa]

I agree with the above, there is a major hardware issue there, and I did suspect from the beginning that it may be PSU related. Stuff breaks of course and nobody can ever predict when. I'm afraid an RMA is your only way forward.