Windows 10: BSOD Playing Games on Stable Overclock: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Hi, I am having some issues with a BSOD when playing games on an overclocked 6600k. The processor itself is be completely stable with a 4.5GHz overlock at 1.296V when stress tested for ~7 hours and through normal use. The BSOD occurs within 30 minutes to 2 hours of gameplay. *Note*: This issue does not persist when the processor is at base clock and voltages. Pictured below is one of my stress tests.
Attachment 104216


The BSOD error in question is: DRIVER IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
And from BlueScreenView, the cause seems to be ntoskrnl.exe

My computer's specifications are as follows:
- Asus z170-A w/ BIOS version 2202
- Intel i5-6600k w/ Corsair H100i v2
- 2x 8Gb Kingston HyperX 2666MHz DDR4 (XMP)
- Asus ROG Strix GTX 1080
- EVGA 600B PSU
- Corsair GT 128Gb SSD
- 2x Seagate 1Tb 7200rpm HDD

All hardware other than the drives are less than 2 months old.


These are the steps I have taken to troubleshoot to no avail:
- updated all mobo drivers (delayed time to crash by ~10 or so minutes)
- clean GPU update to version 372.90 using DDU (no change, causes artifacting at 144hz. Reverted to 368.81)
- ran Memtest86 (4 passes) with no errors
- dropping RAM off of XMP to stock clock (2133MHz)


Potential fixes that I have yet to try:
- cleanboot -> (Does a cleanboot still have necessary drivers to play a game to test results?)
- clean windows installation -> (Either need to grab a separate drive or backup my current installation to a seperate drive. [I do have the space necessary for a complete backup of the OS drive if such is even possible])
- use an alternate PSU -> (Last resort, I do not have any at hand and would have to purchase one)


Any guidance with this issue is appreciated!

:)

 

Windows 10 Flashing Screen, no Sound & Numerous Other Issues

I found the problem with the BSOD's as well, however it bodes ill for overclockers using Windows 10. My Asus P8Z68V-Pro motherboard has an easy one click overclock option, which gives you a mild, stable overclock with one click. The system was perfectly
stable using it and I never had an issue one under Windows 7. Once I "upgraded" to Windows 10, I kept getting BSOD's with Windows 10 though, so on a hunch I went into the BIOS and reverted to stock clocks. Now the system is stable again, so clearly Windows
10 was not playing nice with my overclock. So overclockers beware, and I suggest you stick with Windows 7 if you want to overclock. (Like I really wish I had)

 

BSOD issues Windows 10 64bit

But in games the overclock are stable D:

Btw i had ANOTHER BSOD D:

Reinstalled the gpu driver after this bsod, also attached a jpg photo of the GPU usage while idling at desktop

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...04&authkey=!AO3noiLdb7JVeXI&ithint=folder,JPG

 

I believe I have fixed things on my own now... A clean boot with the overclock caused a watchdog BSOD which is what I am much more familiar seeing when overclocking. I have temporarily upped the voltage on my processor to 1.33V, and have had no issues so far. I must have had a false sense of security with my last stress test. I'll do some more tests and will report back with my results. I'll leave this thread unsolved for a few days until I have ensured stability.

Thanks to anyone who may have looked into this issue before I made this post, I'll let you know how things go.

 

Hi SumDedGuy,

Welcome to the 10forums, and apologies for the delay in reply.

It is good to see that you've resolved your issue on your own, but I'm curious at what brought you to think about a possible security issue.

 

I was just referring to the stress test giving me the feeling that things were stable and I was safe from further issues regarding overclocking. It really just turns out to be a lack of experience and taking the wrong steps due to an unrecognized issue. Had the BSOD been a WATCHDOG_CLOCK_TIMEOUT, I probably would have known what to do from the get go. Though I can say that it's pretty hard to find out what to do when the IRQL error generally indicates very different issue than a lack of voltage to stabilize.

On the matter of progress, I have now ran some further tests and have managed to get things stable at 1.315V. I'll let a few days pass and see if the issue still arises, though I am sure I've gotten the hang of things now.

 

A 0xD1 indicates that a driver attempted to perform action on a pageable or invalid memory address on a too high IRQL, as its description says, this can be caused by a few things including the CPU processing data improperly. For example, the CPU improperly assigns IRQL's to actions performed by the driver when the IRQL rising may not have been requested (not sure if this is possible though).

I agree with you that this wouldn't be one of the first things to suspect *Smile