Can Throttlestop to be used stop BSOD?

I am just a normal user, never before tweaked Windows. Recently, I've bought a used Windows 11 laptop (it was Windows 10, but upgraded to 11). This was supposed to be given to a little kid, The person, who sold it said that sometimes, it got throttled, so he used Throttlestop to stop that, but he didn't say anything about BSOD. He sent the laptop with Throttlestop configured, and it just worked. He sent it with his username and pin. But, when I reset the laptop, BSOD happened whenever it wanted, restarting it. Never had a BSOD before. Before resetting the laptop, I had copied the Throttlestop folder. Still, I read through the Throttlestop guide ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/#post-6865107), downloaded Throttlestop and created a task to start at login. The laptop worked without a BSOD since then. I used it for 10-12 hours continuously, and nothing untoward happened. (I am actually testing it, before giving it away.)

I left it off for 2 days, and booted it again, I got a BSOD. Throttlestop appeared to be running, though. Restarted it manually, rebooted, and the BSOD is gone, for last ~4-5 hours. This a simple convertible laptop with a Pentium Silver N5000 @1.1 GHz. The question is, is it possible to use Throttlestop to stop having a BSOD?

 

BSOD should give you a code of what's causing it. There's probably something else unrelated to TS causing the issue. Sometimes it's just a matter of reseating the RAM / HD or something else. When I was playing around with power supplies / USB-PD charging I rand into some kernel issues aka BSOD / random reboots. I eventually traced it down to a drive issue that resolved it when it got upgraded to a newer version.

W10/W11 doesn't really make a difference in what the root cause is. If you go into event manager and look through the critical errors you should be able to spot correlating processes prior to the BSOD halt. It could be a simple driver issue related to WIFI / GPU or something else causing it to halt.

 

Where should I look in the Event manager? Or is it the Event viewer? I am quite a noob in Windows.

The code given is Whea Uncorrectable error. I checked the memory with mdsched.exe, and the ssd drive. Windows says they are good and correctly working.

 

manager won't do much... viewer is where the info is. Just hit start and type in event and it should come up to open it.



If you want to cut to the chase filter for critical and it slims down the scrolling to find them. Once you have a timestamp you can remove the filter and look into surrounding events that might have a clue on what's causing the issue.

 

How to insert an image here?

 

The critical
Sorry, couldn't post the image here.
I got the image through

 

I usually just capture it and paste it into the text field.

If you need to upload / post a link I use imgur.com/upload ad then right click to get the image address and then use the photo icon to put the link in to display the picture here.

 

I got the image through. Please have a look. Thanks!


The device Kionix 3-axis accelerometer in Keyboard (location (unknown)) is offline due to a user-mode driver crash. Windows will attempt to restart the device 5 more times. Please contact the device manufacturer for more information about this problem.

 

Looks similar to the issue I was having and thought it was the power brick but ended up being a driver issue IIRC it was an Intel GPU driver causing the issue. I figured out it was a driver issue by booting into Linux on a live CD for a couple of days and not having any issues with the HW side of things.

 

I'm assuming the non kernel entries are the throttlestop entries.

 

What is a a user-mode driver crash? Can it be remedied by reinstalling manufacturer drivers? Is it possible to deactivate this Kionix 3-axis accelerometer?

 

If you click on the message it will display more details underneath. It might provide some clues to the driver being installed.

The accelerometer shouldn't affect anything.

 

As Windows would try to restart the accelerometer, but won't reboot the laptop, then the problem must be with the kernel-power, Throttlestop must be doing something to keep the laptop going without the BSOD?

If I reinstall the laptop manufacturer driver package, will that help?

 

Meh.... Kernel Power just indicates when the BSOD is happening as it halts the PC w/o being graceful about restarting or shutting down.

Events surrounding the KP message are where the clues are. Items occurring before the KP critical alert are going to be the cause.

If the accelerometer is within seconds of the critical message then it could be associated with the error.

 

I recommend downloading and installing the following application:

https://www.resplendence.com/download/whocrashedSetup.exe

This will provide an analysis of the crash dump file, if generated. If you're getting a BSOD, you very likely have a crash dump associated with it. This should tell you what is misbehaving and from there you can take appropriate steps.

 

Using whocrashedSetup.exe

crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\123021-13421-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x4159C0)
Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFFBB882F898028, 0xB6000000, 0x110135)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.
--------------------
5 times as above,
and once,

crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP
This was probably caused by the following module: pshed.dll (PSHED!PshedBugCheckSystem+0x10)
Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFFBF8B0CF22028, 0xB6000000, 0x110135)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\pshed.dll
----------------------------

What can be done with this?

 

What kind of laptop is this? Make, model, specs please.

 

Please include brand and specs of your HDD or SSD too.

 

ntoskrnl.exe - generic error / doesn't yield much for troubleshooting purposes
pshed.dll - a little more specific but, still generic

Some other reasons for Blue Screens
New hardware - Software installed.
Device driver - Video driver - corrupted - faulty.
Faulty Ram - Overheating - Dying hard drive, etc.

In the search box type > cmd
Right click > Select Run as administrator
In the Command Prompt window
Type [copy and paste]
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
Press Enter.

Let it run to completion, it may take some time and keep the command prompt window open.
After you see a message that says 'The operation completed successfully'
In the Command Prompt window.
Now type [copy and paste] sfc /scannow
Press Enter.
Again let it run until it has completed the scan.

Restart your pc and let us know if it has helped.

 

Medion Akoya E4271

Device name Medion
Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) Silver N5000 CPU @ 1.10GHz 1.10 GHz
Installed RAM 4.00 GB (3.83 GB usable)
Device ID 28A6B165-6543-49A3-A996-A5875A239289
Product ID 00356-02041-91741-AAOEM
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch Touch support with 10 touch points

SSD Samsung PM871b m.2 2280 256GB

 

I was thinking faulty ram or a dying hard drive. Maybe MEMTEST too?

 

@Tech Junky
Restart without enabling throtttlestop?

I checked the ram with mdsched.exe. Windows says its OK.

 

There should be a utility in BIOS for it too. Also, any SMART utility to check the hard drive would be a good idea. Tech Junky's recommendation for sfc /scannow and chkdsk are a must do. Everything is starting to point to an imminent hardware failure but there are still some checks to do before sticking a fork in it.

 

Heck, it might even be worthwhile to open the laptop up and reseat the ram too.

 

Well, we could spend hours sorting this out or go nuclear and just wipe the drive and install Windows again. Since it's used there's no telling what all has been modified by the previous person. I wipe drives and reinstall Windows when selling systems and sometimes even replace the drive completely for security reasons.

Getting a baseline on a clean install of Windows w/o any modifications might be a good place to start. Since you don't' have much time invested in this yet w/ programs / needing to backup personal data it might be the better option.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned having a similar issue and it turned out to be a driver issue causing similar issues.

I was on the road to looking into HW failures but, before that went to running a live linux from usb for a couple of days w/o any hiccups ruling out HW issues.

 

Maybe, I should do that. I have not installed Windows for a long time, though.
If I do that, do I have to reinstall all Medion drivers?

 

It's not that difficult to do. I think there's even a thread on this forum explaining it. If you have a USB drive available it makes it easier as not all Pc's have optical drives these days.

 

Do I have to reinstall all the Medion drivers for this laptop after?

 

Not sure what that is.

 

The laptop manufacturer is Medion. I have a driver pack for this laptop, which is for Windows 10. As I have Win 11 now, I'd like to install Win 11, but would those win 10 drivers work?

 

The drivers should work. Usually I avoid driver packs since they tend to also include bloatware that's not needed / takes up space.

 

Do I delete/wipe everything, also the efi partition and the recovery partition?

 

When I do it through the advanced option for setup I zap everything and then set Windows to use 100GB and it splits it into 4 partitions automatically. Once it's installed you can allocate the remaining space in disk management for storage.

 

Reinstalled Win 11 cleanly from a USB stick. It took quite a time, and all that time nothing untoward happened such as sudden bsod restart.

I'm keeping the TS folder, just in case. By the way, I had a double keystroke problem, which appears to have gone away since the clean install.

 

Yeah, gremlins tend to abate when a fresh install is completed.

There may be something that was lurking in the shadows from the prior owner causing these "glitches". I would stick w/o installing TS for a few days to make sure things are stable. Maybe grab HWINFO and leave it running to capture data about the system w/ sensors open. Sometimes it can pick up concerns while running. TS is mostly for gaming throttling due to high voltages causing heat and slowing down the CPU / GPU.

As for the drivers I would just open device manager and check that everything is installed. Intel driver assistant can do a scan as well and install from there directly. If it has an AMD / NVIDIA GPU grabbing the drivers directly is easy enough. NVIDIA has a program called GeForce that can work like the Intel app and check for drivers as well. If anything else is missing from there then maybe check the OEM website as they might have an app that scans as well. When I had a Lenovo they had one as well Dell has one. When you get into some of the off brand options though it gets a bit more manual looking for drivers.

 

It is an Intel Pentium. Medion is a Lenovo company, situated in Germany. They make the Erazer gaming laptop. Yes, will not install TS for a while. Hope, it won't be needed. Yes, I'd install HWINFO. Thanks for the help! Will report later.

 

WHEA 0x124 bugcheck code is often an indicator that CPU core voltage is too low. It could indicate a hardware failure or buggy driver, but not usually. Those who enjoy overclocking and/or undervolting are intimately familiar with this code. As soon as you set the voltage too low for the clock speed you are going to encounter this error. The fact that running ThrottleStop prevents it suggests that the problem is not driver or hardware related. If it were, ThrottleStop wouldn't prevent it from happening.

It would be odd to see lower than normal voltage with BIOS defaults. The opposite is generally true and default voltage is usually a little bit higher than it needs to be to account for variance in silicon quality among processors. ThrottleStop would prevent that from occurring if it is correcting the issue. If that is the BSOD you are seeing without ThrottleStop, I would look in the BIOS to see if there are any Core Voltage settings. If there are, the previous owner may have set an undervolt that is too aggressive. I would try setting it to Auto, or increasing it to a higher value. Or, if the BIOS does not have any visible Core Voltage options, then try to just reset BIOS defaults. But, first make note of the boot options. Write them down or take a photo of them with your smartphone. If it is set to UEFI with or without CSM, etc. after setting BIOS defaults. If Windows was installed with custom boot settings you may have to manually change them back to what they are now, before resetting defaults.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?266589-The-OverClockers-BSOD-code-list

 

It is too late now. I'll report tomorrow. This is how TS was set before. I used the same. Set multiplier was set to 11, the default was 27. With this setting, I didn't get a bsod. I wrote about the problem in the OP.

 

OK, that is really good info. We are probably starting to get to the underlying root cause. So, ThrottleStop is being set to a lower than normal multiplier. The lower multiplier requires lower voltage. What we don't know is why. While it may prevent the problem by cutting the CPU performance by more than 50%, it is utterly destroying performance of a CPU that doesn't have a lot of performance to give in the first place. The max temperature of 50°C isn't "hot" per se, but for a system that is running less than half the normal clock speed, with 0.8300V that seems ridiculously warm.

If I had to take a wild guess, the previous owner did that to prevent overheating of the CPU instead of actually fixing what is causing it to overheat.

I would first try preventing ThrottleStop from launching and then looking in the BIOS as I suggested and see if there is a setting with a crazy high undervolt applied. If you don't find anything, reset BIOS defaults and see what it does without ThrottleStop. It may run crazy hot if the thermal paste needs to be replaced or the fans are not working as they should. Severe overheating can also cause the 0x124 bugcheck code because the hotter a CPU gets the more voltage it needs. If it is overheating severely, the default voltage might not be adequate to avoid the BSOD.

 

Good morning!
There was nothing to change in BIOS, so resetted BIOS to defaults. Disabled Throttlestop too. But while writing this, got a BSOD and immediate restart. It was at 8.10, and again at 8.18. There's no code except the Whea uncontrollable error.

This is a fanless convertible laptop. Enabled Throttlestop to be able to finish writing this.

 

It may be overheating and the only way it can function with stability is by crippling the CPU. What does HWiNFO64 tell you about the temperatures without ThrottleStop running right before it crashes with the BSOD?

 

As soon as I try to run HWiNFO64 without ThrottleStop, it goes to a BSOD

 

Maybe try running ThrottleStop with a CPU-Z stress test running in the background and slowly increase the multiplier and watch what happens with temperatures. Keep increasing the multiplier in small increments and see if it overheats and crashes with a BSOD. There is no reason the CPU should not run at full rated turbo speed. You may need to replace the thermal paste to get it running correctly if it is being caused by overheating.

 

First look at CPU-Z with the multiplier at 20, taken at 9:45. Four tabs open in Edge and the File Explorer


Increased multiplier to 22 at 10:15, still doing okay.
Increased to 24 at 11:10, core speed goes up to 2386 MHz, then got a BSOD in just few minutes. Changed it to 23, hope it'd hold. Will add a screeny below

 

It didn't hold at multplier at 23T, got a BSOD after about 15mins. Set it back to 22T. Below 2 screenies,
At 23T


At 22


The max TDP is 6.0W, but TS shows PKG Power at 9.1W at multiplier at 20T. Is this a problem?

 

Well, that is A LOT faster than 1.1GHz, that is for certain. Hitting 73°C at 2.3GHz and 1.200V seems so odd to me, but I have never owned a fanless notebook. It is a miracle it even runs without melting. If you can get it to remain stable at 2.2 or 2.3GHz that will be a whole lot better than 1.1GHz. I can only imagine that it would "feel" way faster than before running at twice the clock speed.

I think it probably would benefit from some attention with the thermal paste, but I don't know that running it at full stock turbo is doable. Hard to say for sure.

 

Thank you for the help. I'll test it with the multiplier at 21T and 22T for some time, and if it is stable, I'll give it to the kid. Also, I'll try to change the paste. The laptop doesn't have to be fast, but for the kid to just to get the hang of using one. Have a nice, profitable and healthy New Year everyone!

 

Happy to throw some ideas your way. I am glad they might have proven useful.

Blessings and Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.

 

For sake of testing, I left the TS at 13T and it worked quite well the whole time without BSOD. But today in the morning, I booted the laptop, logged in opened the web browser, browsed for a while, and then left it as it is, went to do some other work for about 30 mins. When I came back, the laptop had restarted. Then, I increased the TS multiplier to 18T and kept on using it. Its nearly 3 and half hours, nothing untoward happened. In the meantime, I looked through the Resplendence website, downloaded WhySoSlow software, just see what's happening. Now that TS multiplier is set at 18T, the laptop would always run at 1790Mhz. It would not move down at all. I watched this software for more than an hour, but it didn't move down. It shows that the min is 795MHz, but never moved down.
This screeny is taken few minutes ago.

I also did the WhySoSlow alalyze too. Please have a look at it. Should I keep the multiplier to 11T until I change the thermal paste? That is the advertised clock speed. Or, should I stop using the laptop until I change the paste?

 

If you're not experiencing blue screens at 18x then I'd go ahead and leave it there for now. It looks like the temperatures are reasonable at that speed. With a reduced clock speed, it doesn't seem to be overheating from the screenshot you posted.