My PC has started restarting unexpectedly over the past month, despite having no problems before. It has rebooted several times while playing League of Legends, ARK, and a recent beta game. I removed Vanguard, disabled my RAM overclock, removed my CPU undervolt, and reduced my GPU undervolt, but the crashes continue.
Event Viewer shows many instances of a session failing with error 0xC0000022, followed by bugcheck 0x00000093. Earlier dumps also reported 0xC0000005 access violations. The system has only been assembled for about eight months. I ran SFC, which initially reported 1,659 corrupted files, and then completed DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth. SFC now reports no remaining issues.
The problems began after a Windows update, and the crash dumps may be pointing toward the inpoutx64 driver. Could that driver or the update be responsible, or should I be looking more closely at the RAM, CPU memory controller, or another hardware issue?
4 Answers
A clean Windows installation may be worth considering here. SFC finding more than 1,600 integrity violations suggests the installation was seriously damaged, even if SFC says it repaired everything afterward. Back up your files, wipe the system partition, and reinstall Windows and your drivers from scratch if the crashes continue.
Do not completely rule out unstable memory. Even if the RAM overclock was disabled, test the modules individually and run a proper memory test. Also check the CPU's officially supported memory speed and run the RAM at that speed rather than using XMP or DOCP. A failing memory controller can cause repeated access violations and apparently random blue screens.
The minidump files should help identify the failing driver or component, so analyze the newest dumps after the next crash. The 0xC0000005 access violations can come from corrupted system files, buggy kernel drivers, unstable RAM, or failing hardware; the stop code alone is not enough to prove which one is responsible.
Try to identify what changed immediately before the crashes started. Since this began after a Windows update, a newly installed or updated kernel-level driver is a strong possibility. The inpoutx64 driver has reportedly caused compatibility problems with some newer games and updates, so removing or updating software that installed it may help. Check the dump files afterward to see whether the same driver is still involved.
The timing does line up with the Windows update. I removed inpoutx64 and am going to see whether the crashes stop.
That was my concern too. I later noticed the inpoutx64 driver appeared in the crash information, so I removed it and plan to update Windows and test again before completely reinstalling.