I'm having a lot of trouble with my MiniPC running Windows 11. It keeps throwing different BSOD errors like SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, BAD_POOL_CALLER, and KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. On top of that, I just got another error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, and it points to ntoskml.exe as the culprit. I tried using a boot USB, but it won't get far enough to actually boot. I can't even access safe mode because it crashes at the boot logo with a BSOD. I've read a lot of help articles, but they all assume I can access recovery or safe mode to fix driver issues. Any suggestions on what I should do next?
3 Answers
It's also good to keep backups of your data since messing with BIOS or disk settings can lead to data loss. Just a reminder: make sure you have everything backed up in case you need to do a reinstall or further troubleshooting. You never know!
Since you're dealing with BSOD, it would be helpful to get some dump files for analysis. If you can boot into Windows or even Safe Mode, check for any dump files in C:WindowsMinidump. You can zip those up and upload them to a file sharing site. The more dump files you have, the better analysis we can do to narrow down the problem. Just keep trying to get those files if you can!
It sounds like you might be dealing with memory issues. BSODs often indicate hardware problems, mainly with RAM. Windows uses the hard drive for some memory functions, so sometimes storage can appear to be the issue too. Try testing your RAM sticks one at a time in each slot to see if one of them is faulty. If you're still getting crashes, it's likely that something else might be wrong. But honestly, fixing this can get complicated if it's the motherboard or CPU.
I tried that too! All the sticks I tested caused crashes, and I even got a new error: 'kernel security check failure'. What does that mean?