New Recoil Laptop but driver issues,BSOD

DJay

Member
Received my new laptop 10th August with great anticipation as haven't upgraded for over 10 years and wanted a machine that would suit both heavy duty editing and gaming.Pleased with overall look, feel of quality and well packaged, with windows preinstalled. However, there are problems, see below spec:
Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD 144Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080) + G-Sync
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Eight-Core Processor i9-11900 (2.5GHz) 16MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
128GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (4 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3080 - 16.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
4TB CORSAIR MP400 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD (up to 3480 MB/R, 3000 MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
2 x 280W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
2 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Battery
Recoil Series Detachable 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (97WH)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Atlas & Super X-Fi
Wireless Network Card
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
2 x THUNDERBOLT 4 + 1 x USB 3.2 (TYPE C) + 3 x USB 3.2
Keyboard Language
PER-KEY RGB BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Carry Case
Tech Air 18.4" Premium Toploading Case (Clam-shell)
Monitor Cables
1 x 2m DisplayPort Adapter Cable - DP to DVI
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days

Had a few hiccups within 10 minutes of firing it up, screen suddenly went dim and no response from pressing brightness control, so restarted and all been fine since - a mystery.
Then every time on laptop waking from sleep, BSOD followed by restart, then ok. Found someone on forum who had similar issue, which he solved by installing the IRST driver from the accompanying CD that PCS supplied in welcome pack. I did the same and this also resolved the issue.
I am surprised that this wasn't picked up by PCS on testing the build, and this has left me confused as to what drivers have actually been installed.
Am I supposed to download and install all the drivers on the CD, or the drivers from the download section on the PCS site that are specific to my order, or let windows update do all that?
For example, the IRST driver that came preinstalled and caused the BSOD was a year older than the one I installed from the CD, which solved the problem.
I also did a random access test of my 3 ssd drives by copying the same folder (120GB) of mixed photos and small videos from each drive to the others - The corsair to the 970 plus averaged only 15MB/S, yet the corsair to the 980 pro averaged 200MB/s, makes no sense, and the slow speeds make me wonder if the controllers are out of date too- both storage space controller and NVM express controller drivers are dated 21/06/2006. To make things even more confusing, the bios shows the AHCI disabled and the IRST enabled, yet I thought IRST was for Raid configurations, which I don't have.
Overall, I'm happy with the machine,very quick start up etc but feel very uneasy as to whether it is really running at full speed, since the testing of the build does not seem to have been very thorough, and feel more information about which drivers should be used was lacking, and would give new buyers more confidence in the product.
 

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Bhuna50

Author Level
Remove Bullguard. Its been known to cause some issues and Windows defender works just as well.

Ensure that ALL windows updates have been run in the first instance, then check your Device manager to see if any warning symbols re drivers not installed - if any, search on manufacturers websites for updated drivers to ensure you get latest, NOT those on the PCS CD / downloads - these are for last resort.

If you think you might have issues with the SSDs then open the laptop and ensure they are fitted and havent come slightly loose in transit.
 

DJay

Member
Thank you for your advice, makes sense to go to the manufacturers websites. Still dont understand why I'm on IRST when I thought that was designed for Raid.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Thank you for your advice, makes sense to go to the manufacturers websites. Still dont understand why I'm on IRST when I thought that was designed for Raid.
IRST does have an impact on NVME drives as well, but windows should have automatically installed it when you ran system updates?

Have you run all windows updates including optional ones (drivers)? The system won't be fully configured until then.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I rather suspect that not running Windows Update repeatedly on first booting might well have been contributory to your issues, we come across a lot of niggly issues that turn out to be caused by the user not running Windows Update. The OS that PCS install is often many updates (and drivers) back-level, as it is on any PC or laptop you buy, so running Windows Update right off the bat is essential.

IRST does offer some throughput benefits to SATA ACHI drives, though if @SpyderTracks says there are improvements for NVMe drives as well I'll not argue.

If you still have the kernel dump (it's in C:\Windows\Memory.dmp) upload it to the cloud with a link to it here and I'll gladly tell you what caused your BSOD.

AFAIK PCS's testing is mainly a soak test to ensure that the PC actually works and that it doesn't overheat when driven hard. I don't believe they have the time or the technology to test every single feature nor every single port. I very much doubt that any high-street vendor does either.

Coping a set of files isn't the best way to test your SSD's performance. Look for a dedicated SSD benchmarking tool if you want to know what their performance curve looks like. CrystalDiskMark is a decent one and I've had good results from the ATTO Disk Benchmark tool.

Also be careful with judging drivers based on their date, never is not always better. Drivers only need updating if you're having problems with a device or if you know that an updated driver contains features or support that you need. Apart from that they are best left alone. Old code is far more stable and reliable than new code.

Glad you seem to have got your initial problems resolved and that your happy. :)
 

DJay

Member
Thankyou guys, I've checked windows update and did have an outstanding optional driver install, an asix .net ( whatever that is) so now all up to date. I'll give the drive benchmark a go .
I would be very interested exactly what caused the BSOD, so here is the link to memory.dmp, thank you in advance

 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Thankyou guys, I've checked windows update and did have an outstanding optional driver install, an asix .net ( whatever that is) so now all up to date. I'll give the drive benchmark a go .
I would be very interested exactly what caused the BSOD, so here is the link to memory.dmp, thank you in advance

Can you make the dump public please. :)
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
OK, I have the dump.

The first thing I'd suggest is completely removing Bullguard - I can see it's installed, it's known to cause all sorts of issues. It would not surprise me at all to find that this is the root cause of all your problems. The active thread in the dump for example, shows a lot of calls to the fwbase! function, this is part of the Windows firewall. Whilst it's not usually catastrophic to have two active firewalls it's not wise either. It would seem from this dump that both the Windows firewall and the Bullguard firewall were active.

In the dump the stop code is CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED, which means pretty much what it says - a process critical to Windows operation failed and that's what caused the BSOD. The process that failed was svchost.exe, this is a hosting process for a whole range of services which only exist as dll files (and thus can't host their own process). The dll file that failed in this case was ntdll.dll, this is a critical Windows dll that contains a wide range of essential functions, the one that failed here was the RtlpCallVectoredHandlers. Vector handlers are a means of managing exceptions dynamically without having to specifically check for exceptions in the code. It's not possible to determine from the dump what the exception being handled was however.

That said, and although I'm no expert on the deeper internals of Windows, in the list of function calls for the active thread (ntdll.dll) we see a lot of fwbase! calls that seem to have been triggered by the IPv6 interface. Following these down we see an RPC started (Remote Procedure Call) then a couple of COM interface accesses apparently to create a GUID for some resource, and pretty soon after we see a KERNELBASE!UnhandledExceptionFilter, which is probably where the failure occurred.

Looking at what seems to be going on here and noting that you say that the BSODs happen on waking from sleep, this would seem to be some devices (possibly the network card?) that don't respond properly on waking from sleep. Power transition states can sometimes be problematic.

In the first instance I would strongly suggest that you turn the Windows Fast Startup feature off: enter the command powercfg.cpl into the Run command box, in the window that opens click the 'Chose what the power buttons do' menu item in the left pane, and uncheck the 'Turn on Fast Startup' checkbox. That feature is known not to play well with all motherboards.

I don't think this BSOD was caused by drivers and I think you may have run down a rabbit hole thinking this was a driver problem. I can't explain why updating the IRST driver seems to have helped. I do know however, that several people have had niggly issues solved by reseating the M.2 drive containing Windows. I'm not sure in your rather curious mix of drives which one is the Windows drive, but I'd suggest that you remove it and reseat it again firmly. TBH you might as well reseat all those M.2 drives whilst your at it.

Whilst you're inside the case I would reseat the RAM cards as well. If you have a air blower or a low pressure can of compressed air, give the RAM sockets a good blow out to remove all traces of dust. DO NOT blow it with your mouth, the water droplets you exhale will be worse than any dust that may be there!

I would also suggest running Memtest on your RAM, that will stress it hard and highlight any possible issues. That will take many hours on that 128GB of RAM. Why so much RAM by the way?

Donwload Memtest, extract the tool from the archive, use that tool to make a bootable USB stick containing Memtest and boot that USB stick. Memtest will start running, leave it alone and allow it to complete all four iterations of the various tests. Even one error is a failure and you'll need to re-run Memtest on each stick at a time to find the flaky one.
 

DJay

Member
Wow, Thankyou for such a comprehensive and knowledgeable report, I will certainly remove bullguard and the fast start. Not keen to mess around the inside of the laptop at the moment, unless I really have to. I will definitely do the mem test as well. I chose 128gb as I plan to use after effects and photoshop with large files ;I think 64gb would be enough at the moment but I wanted to future proof and for it never to be an issue, a bit wasteful I guess. I have mcafee on all my other devices, so could install that instead, or are you saying windows defender is adequate. If not, can I not just disable windows defender, so both not running at same time?
Thanks again for your help.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I have mcafee on all my other devices, so could install that instead, or are you saying windows defender is adequate.
Nooooo! Just use Windows Defender. In my (long) experience most third party anti-malware tools are just a fast way to a BSOD. Windows Defender is a very comprehensive tool containing exploit protection, ransomware protection (if you turn it on) as well as a very good firewall and anti-virus engine. Plus, it's free!
 
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