Devilmoon
Active member
- Aug 10, 2020
- 30
For context, I have originally asked this question on Superuser but wasn't able to fix the issue. I have currently set up a bounty over there, so if you have an account and would like to earn the bounty you can repost the solution as an answer there and I'll mark it.
So for the past few weeks I've been experiencing quite frequent BSODs on my Windows 10 machine, this ranges from once every 24-48 hours to multiple times a day, and I can't find any kind of solution to the problem.
The usual error message is "KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE" as reported in the title, and by examining the dumps with windbg it always seems to be some kind of buffer overflow, however the process is not always the same (the last two I checked were Firefox and the GOG Galaxy client).
I also had a few BSODS with the error message related to bad drivers (can't remember it exactly), but I think that was tied to either an old Logitech application or DS4Windows, both of which I've removed from my machine (without fixing the actual problem, it seems).
I have tried checking all my disks (chkdsk), my RAM (mdsched), full AV scans with both Windows Defender and Malwarebytes and yet I have found no issues and none of these steps have so far resolved my problem.
Has anyone experienced anything similar to this? I have searched for this problem online but there doesn't seem to be a clear solution to it, and Microsoft's help and documentation isn't very useful in this regard either.
If it can help pinpoint the problem I can provide a few of the minidumps I still have to dig through, but I don't think there's much more valuable information in there.
I should also mention that I upgraded my motherboard, CPU and RAM a few months back, but the issue is much more recent and hence I can't say if they are in any way related.
I believe the only thing I haven't tried yet (other than just wiping all my disks and doing a clean install) is updating the BIOS of my motheboard, but again the problem seems to be something recent and I've been using the same bios since I put the motherboard in.
My issue, as indicated by the original error code "KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE", came from a misbehaving driver even though by analysing the dumps it seemed like random processes on my machine were responsible.
To pinpoint the culpript I used the Verifier tool built into Windows and selected most of the drivers not signed by Microsoft themselves (I also excluded drivers built by other well known companies or that I had for a long time and didn't give me issues, like Nvidia, AMD, Logitech and Valve). When restarting my machine to let Verifier run I booted directly into a BSOD, this time with a different error code ("DRIVER _VERIFIER_IOMANAGER_VIOLATION") indicating that the issue came from Verifier and one of the drivers this time. By going through the new minidump the misbehaving driver seemed to be ScpVBus.sys, part of ScpToolkit (which was an older version of DS4Windows apparently).
Just to make sure I also run Verifier with only this driver selected and booted again into a BSOD, so I decided to remove the driver assuming this was the cause of my problems. Unfortunately a standard removal procedure didn't seem to work, but I found a guide here to remove it completely.
A couple of days after removing this driver, I started getting BSODs again. Once again I ran Verifier, this time checking some logitech drivers since I had an issue in the past with a Logitech app, and because by analizyng the stack trace of the dump by following this guide I could find quite a few references to some HID related components. This did in fact trigger a new wave of BSODs, indicating that one of the drivers was causing some issue, so I removed all of them, uninstalled all Logitech apps from my PC and reinstalled the one I use to control my m+kb from scratch.
This again seemed to solve the problem but after a couple of days I got another BSOD. This time from the stack trace I cannot find mention of any likely culpript, and the process indicated by the dump is firefox.exe.
I noticed a couple of insteresting things in the trace though, and that is:
At this point I believe my only course of action is to somehow completely uninstall the nvidia drivers and reinstall them from scratch, and to somehow fix the missing windows defender driver.
So now my question becomes: How do I do it?
I am providing all past minidumps I have saved, plus the latest one and the full DUMP here for an in-depth analysis.
So for the past few weeks I've been experiencing quite frequent BSODs on my Windows 10 machine, this ranges from once every 24-48 hours to multiple times a day, and I can't find any kind of solution to the problem.
The usual error message is "KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE" as reported in the title, and by examining the dumps with windbg it always seems to be some kind of buffer overflow, however the process is not always the same (the last two I checked were Firefox and the GOG Galaxy client).
I also had a few BSODS with the error message related to bad drivers (can't remember it exactly), but I think that was tied to either an old Logitech application or DS4Windows, both of which I've removed from my machine (without fixing the actual problem, it seems).
I have tried checking all my disks (chkdsk), my RAM (mdsched), full AV scans with both Windows Defender and Malwarebytes and yet I have found no issues and none of these steps have so far resolved my problem.
Has anyone experienced anything similar to this? I have searched for this problem online but there doesn't seem to be a clear solution to it, and Microsoft's help and documentation isn't very useful in this regard either.
If it can help pinpoint the problem I can provide a few of the minidumps I still have to dig through, but I don't think there's much more valuable information in there.
I should also mention that I upgraded my motherboard, CPU and RAM a few months back, but the issue is much more recent and hence I can't say if they are in any way related.
I believe the only thing I haven't tried yet (other than just wiping all my disks and doing a clean install) is updating the BIOS of my motheboard, but again the problem seems to be something recent and I've been using the same bios since I put the motherboard in.
My issue, as indicated by the original error code "KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE", came from a misbehaving driver even though by analysing the dumps it seemed like random processes on my machine were responsible.
To pinpoint the culpript I used the Verifier tool built into Windows and selected most of the drivers not signed by Microsoft themselves (I also excluded drivers built by other well known companies or that I had for a long time and didn't give me issues, like Nvidia, AMD, Logitech and Valve). When restarting my machine to let Verifier run I booted directly into a BSOD, this time with a different error code ("DRIVER _VERIFIER_IOMANAGER_VIOLATION") indicating that the issue came from Verifier and one of the drivers this time. By going through the new minidump the misbehaving driver seemed to be ScpVBus.sys, part of ScpToolkit (which was an older version of DS4Windows apparently).
Just to make sure I also run Verifier with only this driver selected and booted again into a BSOD, so I decided to remove the driver assuming this was the cause of my problems. Unfortunately a standard removal procedure didn't seem to work, but I found a guide here to remove it completely.
A couple of days after removing this driver, I started getting BSODs again. Once again I ran Verifier, this time checking some logitech drivers since I had an issue in the past with a Logitech app, and because by analizyng the stack trace of the dump by following this guide I could find quite a few references to some HID related components. This did in fact trigger a new wave of BSODs, indicating that one of the drivers was causing some issue, so I removed all of them, uninstalled all Logitech apps from my PC and reinstalled the one I use to control my m+kb from scratch.
This again seemed to solve the problem but after a couple of days I got another BSOD. This time from the stack trace I cannot find mention of any likely culpript, and the process indicated by the dump is firefox.exe.
I noticed a couple of insteresting things in the trace though, and that is:
ffffcb82`0220ab18 fffff803`7c87580bUnable to load image \SystemRoot\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvddi.inf_amd64_afaf8d9a55376d3c\nvlddmkm.sys, Win32 error 0n2
nvlddmkm+0x7f580b
[...]
ffffcb82`0220c0a8 fffff803`6ff10801Unable to load image \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\wd\WdFilter.sys, Win32 error 0n2
WdFilter+0x40801
At this point I believe my only course of action is to somehow completely uninstall the nvidia drivers and reinstall them from scratch, and to somehow fix the missing windows defender driver.
So now my question becomes: How do I do it?
I am providing all past minidumps I have saved, plus the latest one and the full DUMP here for an in-depth analysis.
· OS - Windows 10, Version 1909, build 18363.959
· x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit)? 64
· What was the originally installed OS on the system? Windows 10
· Is the OS an OEM version (came pre-installed on system) or full retail version (YOU purchased it from retailer)? Retail
· Age of system (hardware) RAM, Mobo, CPU, boot disk ~5-6 months, GPU, PSU and other disks a few years (If I had to guess 5+)
· Age of OS installation - have you re-installed the OS? ~5-6 months when swapping components installed on clean boot disk, removed from original SSD (now one of the other disks)
· CPU Ryzen 5 3600
· Video Card Nvidia GTX 970
· MotherBoard - (if NOT a laptop) MSI B450 GAMING PLUS MAX
· Power Supply - brand & wattage (if laptop, skip this one) Cooler Master 650
· System Manufacturer N/A
· Exact model number (if laptop, check label on the bottom) N/A
· Laptop or Desktop? Desktop