My new prebuilt Windows 11 PC randomly restarts a few times per week during anything from web browsing and programming to gaming. On one occasion it completely froze while playing CS2 and required a hard shutdown, but most incidents are automatic restarts. The taskbar sometimes disappears one or two seconds before the restart. After crashes during CS2, the game often asks me to verify its files and reinstalls some of them, although that may be a separate, commonly reported game issue because other games have not shown the same behavior.
The system has a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 32 GB of RAM (31 GB usable), and an RTX 5070 Ti. I have reseated the RAM, GPU, and power-supply cables; removed and reinstalled the CMOS battery; run memory, DISM, System File Checker, and disk checks; and performed a completely clean Windows 11 installation from freshly downloaded installation media. The crashes are difficult to reproduce, and deliberately stressing the system with demanding games does not reliably trigger them.
A WinDbg analysis of one minidump reported IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (0xA). The stack ended in Windows file-cache and NTFS write routines, including CcSetDirtyInMask, CcMapAndCopyInToCache, and NtfsCommonWrite, with Chrome listed as the active process. Does this point toward unstable memory, a storage or filesystem problem, a driver issue, or some other hardware fault?
5 Answers
The minidump names the Windows kernel because that is where the bad access was detected, not necessarily because the kernel caused it. With a brand-new prebuilt, test at BIOS defaults with EXPO and other performance profiles disabled, then run separate CPU, GPU, and storage tests while monitoring temperatures. If it still crashes after current BIOS and driver updates, document the dumps and return the system under warranty; intermittent motherboard, RAM, SSD, or power-supply faults can be extremely time-consuming to isolate.
Run MemTest86+ rather than relying only on a short memory test. Test each RAM stick separately, in the motherboard slot recommended for one module, and let each test run overnight so the modules reach normal operating temperature. Passing a quick test does not completely rule out intermittent memory instability. Also temporarily disable EXPO or any automatic memory overclock and use conservative default settings.
Because the crash occurs while Windows is writing through NTFS, check the SSD's health and firmware with the drive manufacturer's utility, review SMART data, and update the motherboard chipset and storage drivers. Reseating the drive or trying another M.2 slot can also help if the system has one. Back up important data before changing storage settings. If the machine is a new prebuilt, repeated crashes are a good reason to use the warranty rather than replacing parts blindly.
Check whether automatic restart is hiding the actual blue-screen message. In Advanced system settings, open Startup and Recovery, disable 'Automatically restart,' and make sure crash dumps are enabled. Event Viewer entries such as Kernel-Power only indicate that the shutdown was unexpected; they do not identify the failed component. Look for WHEA-Logger hardware errors around the same time, and update the BIOS, chipset package, GPU driver, and SSD firmware using the hardware manufacturer's official tools.
The dump does not prove that Windows itself is defective. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL usually means a driver or unstable hardware caused an invalid memory access. Since the stack is handling a file write, I would investigate RAM stability and storage drivers before assuming the CS2 files are the root cause. A clean Windows installation makes ordinary system-file corruption much less likely.
I have not intentionally overclocked the memory, but I will check the motherboard's memory profile and test it more thoroughly.
The CS2 file verification could be unrelated, but if the SSD or its controller is intermittently losing writes, it would fit the file-corruption symptoms. I would not treat the game alone as proof of a bad drive.