Please help, constant BSOD and I have no clue what to do.  

Recently, I've encountered multiple blue screen crashes on my PC as well as random all of a sudden freezes that usually occur when I play a game like Warzone or Valorant. Some of the blue screen error codes I've had included unexpected kernal mode trap, cdd.ll, dxgmms2.sys, system thread exception not handled, and kmode exception not handled.

All of this started happening around a days ago after I updated my nvidia drivers to the lastest version and had some windows update which I believe (going off the update history - don't exactly remember the day I updated) was called "2021-02 Cumulated Update Review for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 10, version 20H2 for x64 (KB601554)." I'm not sure if this is useful info but hopefully it's of some use.I ran into no issues prior to my gpu driver update and windows update.

My PC components are: intel i5 6600k, evga gtx 2060, gigabyte z170x ud3 motherboard, crucial 1tb ssd, 8gb x 2 g.skill ram, and 650w corsair psu.

Some of the things I have done so far (in order):

Rolled back gpu driver to version I was on prior to crashes -> still encountered BSOD

Windows Memory Diagnostic -> found no issues

SFC/SCANNOW -> found no corrupted files

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth -> still encountered BSOD

Windows Defender Full Scan -> no threats

Ran a 4 pass MEMTEST86 -> no errors found

After all this, I still encountered BSOD. The most recent one having the code kernal_security_check_failure. I've been told my next step should be doing a refresh of windows. Any second opinions on this would be amazing as this issue has been driving me crazy.

Here is a link to my most recent minidumps if needed: Desktop.rar - Google Drive

I have also attached a zip from the V2 Log Collector.

Full Windows Version Number: 19042.928

Additionally, I apologize if did not correctly follow any guidelines/rules/procedures, I'm new to all this and have been worrying a lot about my BSODs. If you can let me know for the future what I should do, please let me know!

Hello Edhua888 and welcome to TenForums

Sometimes with the Windows updates on older motherboards there can be a while before the Manufacturer updates the drivers or BIOS to cope with the latest Windows changes. I don't know for sure if this is the reason in your case but it could be. There have not been many updates on the Gigabyte website for your system.

One thing you could do is investigate whether any of the various utility programs such as MSI Afterburner are causing this - they have been known to trigger BSODs in the past.

One way of systematically exploring a software influence is to do the Clean boot troubleshooting method. It is all explained in the following tutorial. Read through it all several times until you are familiar with the process to follow.

Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts | Tutorials (tenforums.com)

philc43 said:

Hello Edhua888 and welcome to TenForums

Sometimes with the Windows updates on older motherboards there can be a while before the Manufacturer updates the drivers or BIOS to cope with the latest Windows changes. I don't know for sure if this is the reason in your case but it could be. There have not been many updates on the Gigabyte website for your system.

One thing you could do is investigate whether any of the various utility programs such as MSI Afterburner are causing this - they have been known to trigger BSODs in the past.

One way of systematically exploring a software influence is to do the Clean boot troubleshooting method. It is all explained in the following tutorial. Read through it all several times until you are familiar with the process to follow.

Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts | Tutorials (tenforums.com)

Hello philc43,

Thank you for taking the time out to help me out.

I thought I should mention that I did a refresh of windows 10 and still encountered a BSOD memory_management. Should I proceed with what you recommend?

Yes, the clean boot is still worthwhile because after a refresh you still have all your programs and files installed.

philc43 said:

Yes, the clean boot is still worthwhile because after a refresh you still have all your programs and files installed.

Hello philc43,

After a few suggestions, I wanted to test out my RAM. I decided to take one out and boot up my PC to see if either of the RAM sticks were the issue. I proceed to take one out, when I booted my PC I was asked to "Reboot and Select proper Boot Device" which has made me confused because it should be booting to my SSD which has windows installed.

I proceed to plug in my boot device with media creation tool and it leads to me installing windows again.

Any advice on how I should proceed with this would be extremely helpful. Could this be a sign that my SSD is corrupted? and is my only course of action right now is to simply install windows again now that I can't even enter my PC.

Edit: I plugged in my removed RAM back in. Rebooted my PC and I'm stll hit with "Reboot and Select proper Boot Device"

When removing your RAM did you accidentally knock any of the SATA cables which connect the SSD?

If you go into the BIOS do you see the drive listed?

philc43 said:

When removing your RAM did you accidentally knock any of the SATA cables which connect the SSD?

If you go into the BIOS do you see the drive listed?

Not that I know of, when I looked in my bios and boot options, my SSD was still there so I'm assuming that should mean that I didn't know out any cables. I replugged and plugged back in my SSD too.

- - - Updated - - -

philc43 said:

When removing your RAM did you accidentally knock any of the SATA cables which connect the SSD?

If you go into the BIOS do you see the drive listed?

EDIT: I did a hard reset by unplugging my power from my computer and waiting for 5 minutes and now my PC booted. This is really strange and saying I'm confused is an understatement.

Upon a couple restarts to see if I would BSOD again, I was hit with kmode_exception_not_handled on my third restart.

Post a new set of logfiles and I'll look at the new crash dump.

philc43 said:

Post a new set of logfiles and I'll look at the new crash dump.

Here is the updated logs. After the boot up, I powered off my PC again and removed one RAM stick. Upon removing one, my PC did not post and it just turned off and on in a loop. I put the stick back in and it booted to windows. Not sure if this is useful info but I thought I should mention it.

Again, thank you for the continued help. This issue has been killing me and I all want to do is be able to use my computer again.

Try removing the other stick next time. It could be an indicator that the problem is connected with the RAM.

Also remember that some motherboards have a memory calibration routine that works by repeatedly cycling the PC on and off as it tests the various RAM settings. Not sure if that was happening in your case though.

In the meantime I'll explore the dump files...

Edit: The latest files are indeed consistent with memory address corruption. I would look into the RAM swaps a little more.