Two Stop Codes in three days
Richard Haseltine
Posts: 102,852
I just had the second Windows 10 stop ATTEMPTED WRITE TO READONLY MEMORY in a couple of days - I think the last was late Friday or Saturday. The general consensus of the click-bait sites seems to be driver issue (which beats hardware issue) but of course they want me to download some utility to check everything, which is not going to happen. Is there a way to narrow down the culprit using standard tools?
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I had that on my work laptop amongst others. Eventually it stopped booting, and wouldn't reinstall; basically something critical had gone wrong.
On the off-chance it's something hardware related after all, I'd be doing lots of backups.
Could it be a virus issue?
Gee, thanks. It could be a vrud, or course, but I think I am fairly careful and I do run good (in theory) anti-malware.
This page had a number of possible remedies with standard tools;
https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-software/fix-attempted-write-to-readonly-memory-bsod-in-windows-10.html
OK, I will try working through those later. Thanks.
Yea, you all backed up just in case?
This would be a good time to just roll back to a previous drive image, but I assume you don't have that.. (great time to look into it though) try the above, then worst case nuke it and reformat (to determine if its software or a hardware issue). If you format and start over, then definately look into a regular disk imaging app (I use Acronis but theres loads out there).
I have back ups (fresh one yesterday) but not drive images, currently.
this is the first time I've seen a Mod here or anyone connected/working for Daz asking advice from the rest of us kinda a warm fuzzing feeling even though I have no answer or can help. Haven't come across this myself yet but have had other w10 updates in the past that have been screwy and there has been a popup everytime I restart telling my about all these new bells and whistles to look at and activate or not but I keep clicking the not right now option
For checking hardware I can recommend this, it's cheap and made by a company which is making professional equipment for hardware testing. I had a problem with file corruption on a new system, MemTest86+ reported no RAM problems after multiple hour long tests, but this program found a bad RAM stick instantly.
https://www.pc-doctor.com/solutions/toolbox
Wow. I can't help specifically with this problem, but I had a similar but different mysterious Windows 10 stop (0x00000117 = VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT_DETECTED) once or twice a day plaguing my just purchased computer for 3.5 months. The BSOD info (usually) had the NVIDIA driver correctly identified as the culprit. Over the 3.5 months, I checked Windows, NVIDIA, DAZ 3D and other forums, and nobody was reporting anything like what I was seeing. Eventually, I posted the memory dump to a Windows forum, and a helpful person posted the usual boilerplate "troubleshooting" procedure for all BSODs, which included erroneous instructions for uninstalling the NVIDIA driver and re-installing it. The erroneous re-install instructions said to use the Windows Device Manager.
It didn't work, but it did start me thinking about what NVIDIA had to say about uninstalling and re-installing their drivers, so I looked at the release notes for the driver.
For every driver release, there are release notes
ie:
https://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/451.67/451.67-win10-win8-win7-release-notes.pdf
These release notes always include the following information:
-----------------
Uninstalling Drivers Using Device Manager is Not Supported
Issue
On all supported versions of Microsoft Windows, uninstalling the NVIDIA driver using the Windows Device Manager may not remove associated files or applications.
Explanation
Microsoft has confirmed that this behavior is by design. If you wish to uninstall the NVIDIA driver, it is recommended that you do so using Add and Remove programs.
See the Microsoft KB article 2278714.
------------------------
The only reliable way I know of narrowing down the culprit is to see what driver is named as the likely culprit in the BSOD message, and it may take more than one to get the right one. All Windows forums helpers report that as the problem. I found BlueScreenView very helpful for getting full information from memory dumps.
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html
But hardware issues can also cause BSODs
If a Nvidia driver is reported as causing a BSOD I suggest getting DDU, Display Driver Uninstaller, and the current latest Nvidia driver, directly from Nvidia's website. Do a clean uninstall of the Nvidia driver using DDU and then install the latest driver. That will hopefully clear up whatever leftover file is causing your issue.
There's no hardware or process listed in the BSOD screen, just the stop code message itself. I was hoping it might be possible to extract the culprit from the data it says it is gathering.
Now, what I meant to mention is that I did have the system shut down unexpectedly a couple of days before the first error, twice. We had had thunmder storms rumbling around in the far distance but nothing close - the system didn't seem to be getting hot when i checked after the first one - after the second the CD player (on the same circuit) also reset so I assumed it was something external to the house, though the UPS should have blocked that. The real oddity is that in retrospect I'm pretty sure the power light was still on on the PC on the second occasion, even though it was off as far as restarting went. So, that might indicate a hardware issue (UPS?) but it might also have been enough to break a driver or something like that. Very sorry for missing this from my first post.
Thanks, I've bookmarked that.
Do you have Ryzen CPU with a motherboard that has StoreMI technology? If you installed the drivers for the StoreMI tech on the motherboard you will go those blue screens in some circumstances. Since I wasn't interested in researching the circumstances of those blue screens and don't actually need StoreMI technology I just uninstalled the StoreMI drivers and the blue screens went away.
Also, I have a Gigabyte B450 DSH3-WIFI motherboard and within the last month they've updated the BIOS (now BIOS 51)and frustratingly they've messed up how the BIOS handles USB storage in some cases when rebooting. I have to unplug the USB storage device(s) to get the computer to boot off the SATA SSD HD with the new BIOS (occasionally) and that wasn't a problem with (BIOS 50).
If the system is getting hot and it isn't doing something unusual or under heavy load that means, usually, a fan has failed or it needs dusting. Take the side panel off and take a look inside. Clear out the dust bunnies. Remember do not use a vaccum, unless it is specifically one made for cleaning electronics. Then with the panel still off turn the computer on. Check that all the fans spin up. If any don't or don't spin properly or sound funny, etc. replace them. Check CPU-Z and GPU-Z as well that your temps are inside reasonable levels.
If nothing obvious is an issue but the system still seems to be hot check the sides of the PSU while the system is on. If its hot to the touch or the fan isn't turning shut everything down and replace the PSU.
If a static discharge got through your surge protector/UPS during the the thunderstorm there are any number of things that could be just slightly damaged now. The most likely ones are the CPU and various controllers on the MoBo.
It wasn't hot by the Gigabute utility, not enough to cause issues (though I wasn't watching at the exact moment it powered off). Although I just fired the utility up again and the CPU is 64C which is higher than I would expect since there are no major applications running - the ambient is about 5C higher than it was when I built the system and I think CPU was around 40C idle. Some background task must have been busy - it's dropped back to 41C now. Fans are all spinning, the only ones I can't see are those on the GPUs and they are a more usual temperature anyway.
Damage is of course my worry - the question is, how do you diagnose? This is the drawback of DIY.
I don't have that, so probably not the issue.
Been a while since my last BIOS update, and that was to a slightly less than cutting edge version, so probably not the issue.
If it isn't an outright failure it can be next to impossible to diagnose. If it happens under specific conditions, like when the system gets above a specific temp, then components can be swapped and the system can be brought to that temp but generally that is far more labor than most systems are worth.
64C is high for some background app doing something. Keep CPU-Z or whatever you're using, open for a while and track your temps for a couple of hours if you can. If temps are routinely going that high, for more than a few seconds, while you're not rendering or gaming or streaming content that is something to investigate.
Ultimately this is one of those cases where if it keeps happening its cause to worry a lot but if it happens twice and then doesn't happen again you maybe update your drivers and BIOS and move on.
Ok, thanks. I found my original build thread and apparently I was hitting 81C while rendering then - tried a (fairly short) render just now and it hit 85C, which pretty much matches the difference in room temperature. Tonight has been a bit busy but i'll try the more protracted checking tomorrow and see if anything turns up (or turns up its toes).
I know there's a lot of info in here already and some of it may be covered so sorry if this of this is repeated.
Go to your event viewer, if the OS was able to record the events, it can give you a bit more details.
Check your device manager and see if there's any "!" listed by the hardware. If there aren't any, check your video card, mobo, sound card drivers and make sure they are the ones you want and not the Win10 generic drivers that windows loves to replace them with. Drivers are annoyingly fickle and an unexpected shutdown could corrupt them very easily.
I would also suggest a system scan: go to your command prompt, run as administrator and type in "sfc // scannow" and let it try to find any issues with your OS. If it finds a problem it should be able to repair it automatically. There are times when it can't repair the problem and then you'll have to boot up and use the Win10 repair tools, but hopefully this won't need that.
Do you have a recent System Restore point that you'd be willing to try? Sometimes if it is just a corrupt driver, restoring to a point before the issue can fix it.
I know 3rd party stuff isn't always trustworthy but I've been using whocrashed for years and I trust the software on every system I've built: https://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed
The Home Edition is freeware but it's still functional and can usually let you know if it's driver or hardware related.
There is a message related to the recovery in Event Viewer (which i hadn't remembered to check, thank you for the reminder), though it is cryptic:
I also seem to have occasional blocks of yellow triangle messages telling me that "Disk # has been surprise removed" running through several numbers, though I've not noticed any access issues (and the blocks of warnings don't coincide with the stop-errors). Scrolling back they seem to start happening, usually once every day or two, at the beginning of July - I don't see any for the second half of June, at which point I stopped scrolling
Sometimes when I have issues like that, go into Win-Safe mode and compare. Also, while in in normal OS mode, disabling many services via admin-management or msconfig>startup, and run the system looking for clues.
First result I got on search engine I searched for Win 10 Stop (am on WIn7 and didn't know what that is) is this: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/feedback/forum/fdbk_news/windows-10-stop-code-fix/f2d4e221-fd68-424c-ac28-1557697fa498
which also suggests a safe-mode log-on. Acts like an internal reset. Possibly won't be that easy for you, because sounds like your system error has major time delays, which is odd. Perhaps indicating something realted to scheduled?
Just some more ideas to add your pile. Sorry if any of that was already suggested as just skim read this (time-thing).
@Richard Haseltine
Sometimes I can trouble shoot hardware, and bad driver install issues using the device manger and looking for error messages on the device list. a quick way to tell if a you have a piece of hardware or a bad device driver or something has failed to load.
How many disks do you have? Does it run through all of them, think of them as 0 = C etc.?
That it least indicates you might not be having an issue related to a static discharge. If you're getting the error for all your HDD's and SSD's that's one of those not good errors. If it's just for one drive, that's been partitioned or the like that's not nearly as bad. If it's one physical drive run chkdsk /r and then any other drive tests you have (just run that on all your drives anyway although it will take some time). Check the power and data connections (both ends).
Then check to see if any app has created any ghost drives, I vaguely recall an article about the Xbox app creating fake drives when installing games. This could, I think, cause errors like what you're having.
Be careful using device manager. You can certainly find things that aren't working right using it but don't try uninstalling stuff through it. That can cause serious issues.
I just use to to check devices and drivers give me a idea if something needs replaces sucha a Ram chips mouse displays drive etc. its a great way to find failed hardware as well. and then I just call my tech guy at best buy ..lol
You probably do this already, but it's definitely worth downloading something to watch for SMART errors if you don't have something already. My machine was acting really weird and something in the event viewer hinted to me that it may be disk related (maybe it was the "disk has been removed" error? I really don't remember) I downloaded a tool and found that one of my disks had enough SMART errors to be marked as bad. Even after I removed that disk, I had to scan/repair another disk that had some files get corrupted due to the handful of hard resets that happened.
Two things came to mind as you mentioned thunder...
Does your motherboard have a backup bios, you could try using that one incase the "primary" one has somehow been damaged
Do you have external USB devices with their own power sources (transformer or battery), if the voltage levels don't match between the computer and the external device, it can cause miscellaneous problems - The battery overheated and died on my mobile 4G Router and it caused problems in POST, until I caught an error message pointing to USB voltage differencies. Got a new router, but the old one had already done some damage to the "primary" bios, switched to the backup bios and the problems went away.
I had surge protection and still do, but I forgot to include the phone line in that; it came in through the phone line and fried the motherboard, PSU and router. Just to cheer you up further. I suppose it is possible that a slight surge caused minor damage?
damn is that a thing too, I better whack one on my modem then
Some insurance companies offer to cover damages to IT equipment from power surges, I got that option added to my general insurance policy after a lightning killed a lot of equipment here. Doesn't cost very much, AFAIR I pay about $40-50/year extra for covering damages up to $5000. The insurance already covers Hi-Fi and other electronics, it's only IT equipment I have to pay extra for for some reason, may vary from company to company.