PC crash/reboot - Driver issue - 0x00000116

[smhughes]

Hi All,

Looking for some advice please and wondering if anyone has seen the issue I'm having at the moment?

Failure scenario:

Playing a game, any game really. Screen goes black, I still have audio for 5 - 15 seconds and then the PC restarts. This happens intermittently, I've sometimes had this occur days apart but at times it's happened as little as 10 minutes apart.

When logging back in I check the event viewer and see the following error in the logs:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000116 (0xffffca04f8574010, 0xfffff8054d017b14, 0xffffffffc000009a, 0x0000000000000004). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 0cbcd1b3-cd19-467f-86ce-4031781c5c2f.

Looking it up online it seems to be related to a video driver issue and a number of forums suggest things like making sure your OS is up to date, doing a clean driver uninstall with DDU as well as under volting the GPU, etc.

What I've tried:

Full driver clean with DDU (Several times).
Made sure that all OS updates where installed, even the optional ones.
Under volted my GPU as some forums hinted at the possible "cheap" transistor use by some manufacturers were unable to handle certain load and could cause the crashes in some scenario's.
Removed and re-seated the GPU.
Performed a fresh Windows install as a last ditch effort.

I've already RMA'd my PC and upgraded to the Strix 3080. The technician replaced my GPU and CPU as there seemed to be some issues seen with the CPU during testing as well. After the RMA work was completed, they state that my PC was stress tested overnight and the issue was not seen.

It seems that the crashes are less frequent recently but still happening.

I've can provide the Windows memory dump if someone would like to take a look.

The last thing I can think of is that it may be an issue with the motherboard. I've seen one mention of a laptop user having a very similar issue, RMA'd multiple times and eventually the motherboard was replaced and the issue stopped. Grasping at straws here though.

If you need any further information, let me know.

 

[smhughes]

PC specs:

Case	CORSAIR iCUE 5000X RGB MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i9 Eight-Core Processor i9-11900K (3.5GHz) 16MB Cache
Motherboard	ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS XII HERO Wi-Fi (LGA1200, USB 3.2, CrossFireX/SLI) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)	32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card	10GB ASUS ROG STRIX GEFORCE RTX 3080 - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st Storage Drive	4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive	1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive	NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply	CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable	1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling	Corsair H115i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste	ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
LED Lighting	50cm ARGB LED Strip
Extra Case Fans	3x Corsair LL120 RGB LED Fan + Controller Kit
Sound Card	ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card	10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
Wireless Network Card	NOT REQUIRED
USB/Thunderbolt Options	MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language	United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media	Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software	FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus	BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser	Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty	3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery	STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time	Standard Build - Approximately 15 to 17 working days
Promotional Item	Get HITMAN 3 and more with select Intel Processors
Promotional Item	Get CoD:Cold War & 1YR GeForce Now w/ select RTX Graphics Cards
Promotional Item	Get Assassin's Creed: Valhalla with select SAMSUNG SSDs!
Promotional Item	Choose from 3 incredible Ubisoft PC titles - Free with select Samsung SSDs
Welcome Book	PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland

 

[ubuysa]

I've can provide the Windows memory dump if someone would like to take a look.

Yes please. Upload the kernel dump in the file C:\Windows\Memory.dmp to the cloud somewhere (it'll be too large for here) and post a link to it here.

If all you have are minidumps (in the folder C:\Windows\Minidump) they will do, though they're less than ideal. You can probably upload minidumps direct to here.

 

[smhughes]

Yes please. Upload the kernel dump in the file C:\Windows\Memory.dmp to the cloud somewhere (it'll be too large for here) and post a link to it here.

Thanks so much.

Here it is: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SSL6fWLoC8rGQ3VSMgKImZjjn1rA4Wk-?usp=sharing

 

[ubuysa]

Thanks so much.

Here it is: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SSL6fWLoC8rGQ3VSMgKImZjjn1rA4Wk-?usp=sharing

I don't think the dump is going to be a great deal of help in this case. The stop code is VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (TDR is Timeout Detection and Recovery), which means that a timeout occurred in the video driver and an attempt to reset the driver to recover from the timeout failed. TDR is designed to detect graphics timeouts when the card fails to repsond to the driver and reset the driver to recover and prevent a "hang". This stop code is characteristic of instability issues in either (or both!) the graphics driver or the card itself.

The failure occurred in the nvlddmkm.sys driver, this is your Nvidia graphics driver and that's not surprising given the stop code.

Argument 3 in the dump contains the exception code of 0xc000009a, this indicates a STATUS_INSUFFICIENT_RESOURCES error and means the API has insufficient system resources to carry out the specified task. That might suggest a driver issue rather than a hardware issue?

In the list of calls made by the active thread (which was part of the System process) in addition to the nvlddmkm.sys and dxkrnl.sys calls to the graphics driver (nvlddmkm.sys) and the DirectX driver (dxgkrnl.sys) there are also a large number of calls to NTFS functions which are of course related to a storage drive, almost certainly to your NVMe system drive.

I think it worth removing and reseating that M.2 NVMe SSD. We've had many people in the past have weird issues caused by a badly seated M.2 drive. I would run a chkdsk /f /x command on that SSD too just to check the filesystem on there. You will have to reboot afterwards.

The stack trace doesn't really help much, we see a system thread entered and almost immediately the TDR function traps a graphics timeout failure.

In reading through your OP it seems that you were experimenting with undervolting the GPU? I don't know whether you've tried that with the new one, but with instability problems like this it's important to remove all undervolts and all overclocks because both are known to cause instability.

Your Nvidia driver is dated 5th August 2021 which I assume is the latest version? It might be worth removing that with DDU and trying one or two back level versions, it's not unknown for new drivers to cause instability.

I didn't see any third party anti-virus drivers in your dump but if you do have a third-party antivirus engine installed I would try removing it completely and see whether that helps. In my experience third party anti-virus products are often just a fast way to a BSOD.

 

[smhughes]

Hi Ubuysa,

Thank you for the analysis, much appreciated. I was actually thinking of rolling back the driver versions.

Would you suggest the driver rollback test before reseating the M.2 drive?

No overclocks or undervolting since my PC was received back from RMA. No third party AV, only Windows defender.

 

[ubuysa]

Hi Ubuysa,

Thank you for the analysis, much appreciated. I was actually thinking of rolling back the driver versions.

Would you suggest the driver rollback test before reseating the M.2 drive?

No overclocks or undervolting since my PC was received back from RMA. No third party AV, only Windows defender.

I'd be tempted to reseat the M.2 drive first...

 

[smhughes]

Lovely, will give it a go this evening. Thanks again!

 

[smhughes]

Update, reseating seemed to be the fix until last night. Same crash unfortunately. I've uninstalled all video drivers with DDU and have rolled back driver version to 471.41 which was the version that was installed when my PC was returned from RMA.

 

[Scott]

Could you uninstall Bullguard. It causes no end of trouble. Or is that removed already?

 

[smhughes]

Could you uninstall Bullguard. It causes no end of trouble. Or is that removed already?

Uninstalled on day one Was the first thing I did when receiving my PC as I saw so many mentions of it causing trouble.

 

[Scott]

Ok, with the reinstall.... was it a complete clear of the drive, partitions removed etc?

I think we can rule out the M2 drive for now, may come back to it later though.

The likely suspects for me, given the description of the crash, are RAM, CPU & Motherboard.

Could you run memtest and see if it passes your RAM?
The CPU has been replaced so I think it's quite unlikely that this is the cause but lets not rule it out.
The Motherboard would normally be bottom of the list but with the problems noted previously and the CPU/GPU already being replaced, if it's not the RAM there's a high likelihood that it's a fault with the board itself.

The crash is a hard crash. I had very similar crashes happen with my overclocked 6700. It wasn't getting enough voltage at times and it would crash out exactly as you describe, with a proper hard fault. I don't even recall there being a BSOD at times, it just went black.... played audio and then reset altogether.

With no overclock applied and the CPU being replaced, this would suggest to me that the problem followed on... leading me to RAM/Mboard.

 

[smhughes]

Hey Scott,

So for the reinstall, yes, complete reinstall, deleted all partitions and started from scratch. I've run the windows memory diagnostic for the RAM and no errors are reported.

I had another crash this afternoon on a previous driver version (471.41) so as a last ditch effort I've uninstalled all drivers with DDU again and gone for one more version below (471.11) and installed it on my E drive (dedicated M.2 for games) instead of the C drive. Not much else I can think of doing after this. Might have to RMA it again

Link to the memory dump for the last crash: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SSL6fWLoC8rGQ3VSMgKImZjjn1rA4Wk-?usp=sharing

 

[Scott]

Memtest is a memory specific testing program. Far more in-depth than the Windows DIagnostic. I would still recommend starting with this.

 

[ubuysa]

Memtest is a memory specific testing program. Far more in-depth than the Windows DIagnostic. I would still recommend starting with this.

I've not looked at the new dump yet but I would strongly second this. Flaky RAM causes all sorts of weird issues. It's important to test it as we as you can.

 

[smhughes]

No worries, thanks guys. Creating the memtest boot drive now.

 

[ubuysa]

This dump is identical to the previous one, well not identical but I mean it's the same stop code, the same exceptions code, the stack trace shows the same route to the bug check, etc. There are many calls to NTFS functions by the active thread (in the System process again) and whilst there's no suggestion of any issues with that drive it's not possible to rule it out completely just yet. It's not high on my list of possible causes though.

It's definitely worth running Memtest, though even that can't prove your RAM is good.

My money would be on it being the graphics card. It's failed for a second time in exactly the same way...

 

[smhughes]

Thanks again for checking the mem dump. Really appreciate it!

So I've run memtest and no errors were found on any of the four passes.

The GPU failing the same way a second time around would be crazy unlucky Especially that it's a different brand.

What about updating the motherboard BIOS?

 

[Martinr36]

Thanks again for checking the mem dump. Really appreciate it!

So I've run memtest and no errors were found on any of the four passes.

The GPU failing the same way a second time around would be crazy unlucky Especially that it's a different brand.

What about updating the motherboard BIOS?

You would need permission from PCS to do that otherwise you can lose your warranty

 

[ubuysa]

Thanks again for checking the mem dump. Really appreciate it!

So I've run memtest and no errors were found on any of the four passes.

The GPU failing the same way a second time around would be crazy unlucky Especially that it's a different brand.

What about updating the motherboard BIOS?

Talk to PCS. Point them to this thread and the dumps and see what they suggest. You would be unlucky to have a faulty card - but it does happen. I don't think there is much else you can do yourself.