Windows 10: The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) did not load: dam

So I frequently get the event viewer message
"The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) did not load: dam"
Well, DAM I say!
What is dam, and does anyone care?
By the way, in other Windows, I like to keep my desktop quiet and calm. I don't recall knowing how to do that in 10, but maybe I made it too quiet some months back?
What do you think?

:)

 

MEMORY_MANAGEMENT Crash

The bugcheck was 1a memory management.

With the parameters it indicated: An unknown memory management error occurred.

The event logs were were limited 11/16 - 11/20 and were unremarkable except for boot- start driver problems.

You may be able to update the non-Microsoft drivers to fix the boot-start problems.

This may or may not fix the bsod as there has been no definitive driver yet found as the cause of the bsod.

There was 1 devices in the category of problem device as it was disabled: Killer E2500 Gigabit Ethernet Controller PCI\VEN_1969&DEV_E0B1&SUBSYS_E0001458&REV_10\FFE6605F1C1B0DFF00 This device is disabled.

So at this time if you have more bsod you can submit the mini dumps.

Alternatively you could use windows driver verifier to create more dumps for debugging.

If you want information on how to do that lets us know.

Event[714]:

Log Name: System

Source: Service Control Manager

Date: 2017-11-20T15:04:10.437

Event ID: 7026

Task: N/A

Level: Information

Opcode: N/A

Keyword: Classic

User: N/A

User Name: N/A

Computer: DAEDALUS

Description:

The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) did not load:

bam

CSC

dam

Dfsc

FileCrypt

GpuEnergyDrv

gwdrv > Glass wire network security driver

HWiNFO32 > hwinfo32 kernel driver

MsSecFlt

NetBIOS

npsvctrig

nsiproxy

Psched

rdbss

veracrypt > veracrypt driver

vwififlt

WdFilter

Event[122]:

Log Name: System

Source: Service Control Manager

Date: 2017-11-16T22:28:42.511

Event ID: 7026

Task: N/A

Level: Information

Opcode: N/A

Keyword: Classic

User: N/A

User Name: N/A

Computer: DAEDALUS

Description:

The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) did not load:

atc

avc3 > bitdefender active virus control filter driver

bam

bdfwfpf > bitdefender

CSC

dam

Dfsc

FileCrypt

GpuEnergyDrv

gwdrv > Glass Wire network security driver

gzflt > Bitdefender Gonzales File system driver

HWiNFO32 > hwinfo32

MsSecFlt

NetBIOS

npsvctrig

nsiproxy

Psched

rdbss

veracrypt > Vera Cryt driver

vwififlt

 

Computer reboots when idle, error Windows cannot continue message references a registry_error

Thanks for quick reply mlg63.

Windows shows being activated. I upgraded to Win10 from this eligible Win7 device since it was available (July). I did the clean install after HD crash and installed new Solid State HD, very nice I might add. After new install activation was accepted from
original install.

Here's the event log message for reboot:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000051 (0x0000000000000001, 0xffffc0015d5c5000, 0x00000000e5e0772b, 0x00000000000002d2). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 7efd2f38-dcca-47b8-95bc-129829e12dbc.

This is message preceding reboot: (2 minutes earlier)

The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) did not load:

dam

EhStorClass

Thanks,

Have a Happy and Safe New Years!

 

I just noticed that I have this too. And I have no idea what it is.

 

It has been a while since these were posted; however the problem still shows up from time to time.
dam or DAM refers to the Desktop Activity Moderator. It moderates various aspects of desktop activity, and if one or more of the activities fails to start during startup, this error can be reported along with other areas that may clue the individual on what is causing it. Examples: One of the tiles is disabled, and therefore won't update: like news and such. Other activities which may be disabled include activities normally found on laptops and tablets, power saving, clock updates etc., nothing big! If the system waits on the dam, it may miss something stuck in the pile making the dam and fail to report that!

This is handled through the SCM, Service Control Manager, and I have been reading that the SCM can be a bit skittish. For example, if at startup, several services and such are handled by the SCM. If one or more of these doesn't respond in a timely manner that it has loaded, SCM will generate the DAM error or an other SCM error, even though that service may later come online. So, it seems we could be getting a lot of false positives. Add to that tidbit, little information is available about DAM, and too much on the SCM and what you have appears to be a bottleneck. (In other words, dam error shows up a lot for a lot of things) Informational! If it doesn't show up every time, but only shows up periodically, examine the other events... and you may discover under the informative events certain things coming online after the event. Either way, it's not important like errors. Warnings are more than informative because something in the OS may not behave as intended without whatever the warning was... and Critical is sure to be causing clearly observable problems.

It could be a coincidence that if one examines all the startup activities happening at boot (and that's when dam shows up... most of the time), and that the OS may run into work piling up faster than the processor and memory can handle it, these processes kind of pile up to make a dam. And like a dam, water still flows, and things still get through, but if it floods, the dam can break... but according to various reads... only temporarily, or forever, if the particular process has been disabled; if you notice... the event is only informational, and not an error or critical error. Systems today do not do work linearly like in the old days... so some things may get tied up before the thing that needs it. There are multiple threads or actions happening simultaneously.

Here's an example from my machine:
First we get an error: The tib_mounter service failed to start due to the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

This occurred because I didn't have my USB Hard Drive plugged in. Not plugged in, and therefore it doesn't need the drivers installed for it right now, and a 0.02 seconds later... we get....

The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) did not load: dam (Says it's dam = Desktop Activity Moderator, but also I've seen dam = Device Access Manager... go figure.) one good acronym is as good as another.

In programming we can often handle these types of problems with a sweet little routine that gets placed in a loop. In the old days... things happened in an orderly fashion, nowadays, you call an API, and then loop to monitor it. Only the problem is, in machine language it's stuck in the loop, so if your waiting, unless it's some kind of run in the background housekeeping thing, you're stuck. So, a process exists that you can place in the loop that basically tells the machine... go do your thing, and come back when you're done, so while in the loop, other processes are busy taking care of business, while you wait for the specific thing you're waiting on to finish up before you proceed. Sweet. But, often in a booting process, like startup, and boot from bootstrap, you can only put one foot in the boot at a time, other processes may not be available. So, what happens is if something needs something, and it's not there, it reports it even though later it may become available. If everything was in the queue, and waiting to process, eventually it all completes. Not as clean as one would like, but it works. Think of it like when debugging, one may set up little messages that tells you what's getting done, and it's just informational, unless there's an issue.

So, I'd say: Don't get hung up on informational events, that's all they are, there to help if something goes wrong, and you will drive yourself silly trying to track down and "fix" something that is intended not to be fixed.