Consistent BSOD - Riot Vanguard - How to prevent / fix ongoing issue?

Question

Roughly a week ago I started experiencing the Blue Screen of Death. Unable to source the issue via event viewer, I referred to the Minidump files the crashes were creating.

Using WinDbg, I was able to find that vgk.sys is the driver causing the failure. I am unfamiliar with how to read the analysis and see what is causing the driver to fail, and there is very little online regarding this issue.

The crashes are consistent with Riot Vanguard, the anti-cheat software used by Riot for it's games League of Legends and Valorant.

Crash times are inconsistent. I've crashed at: System Startup

Launching Riot Client

Accepting League of Legends game queues.

I've also crashed without ever launching the Riot Client, but noticed Vanguard is a mandatory start-up application. Crashes happen seconds, minutes or hours after startup or interaction with League of Legends or the Riot Client.

I've tried the following:

Updating Windows

Updating graphics drivers

Updating audio drivers

Running Windows Defender quick and full system scans

Utilized the repair tool to find any corrupted windows files

Uninstalled and reinstalled Riot Vanguard

Uninstalled and reinstalled League of Legends

Uninstalled and reinstalled both above applications at the same time

Ran Riot Client as Administrator

I have not tried reinstalling Windows. That is my last resort and I'm unsure if that would fix the problem anyway.

Here is a link to the minidump files. I've zipped them.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Aw1bc0lBH0BHoGgNcPb6cJbJK5o85XF2/view?usp=sharing 

Here is my system information:

OS: Windows 11 Home

Version: 24H2

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700K (3.40 GHz)

RAM: 32GB DDR5 Corsair

System Type: 64-bit

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

Answer 1

I had the same problem and I think I fixed it like this:

You have to update your BIOS and then check those settings:

1. Secure Boot: Enabled (already had this)
2. TPM 2.0 (Security Device Support): Enabled (I had to change this)
3. XMP / A-XMP: Activate the XMP profile for your RAM so that it does not run at the slow default clock speed. (I had to change this too but idk if it is really necessary)

After that, lol was working again (so far)

Answer 2

All of the dmp files indicate a driver error related to the Valorant anti-cheat program Vanguard that caused the crash.

-If you have any cleaners, malware cleaners, utilities, other anti-cheat programs, or third-party antivirus programs installed on your computer. Use the uninstaller tool on its support site to completely uninstall the software and see if your system is stable.

-Outdated BIOS and chipset drivers can also cause anticheat-related crashes. Download the latest updates directly from the motherboard support website.

-For the Nvidia graphics card driver. Download the latest driver from the graphics driver manufacturer's support website.

Select the Clean Install options.

Then restart the computer.

-If none of these steps resolve the issue, try completely uninstalling the anti-cheat program and monitor whether the system stabilizes.

If another crash occurs, please share the latest .dmp file so we can check if a different driver/hardware is causing the crash.

Answer 3

Hi, I'm Jan and I'm happy to help you today. I'm sorry you're having this problem. The minidump file link is set as restricted. Please update the restriction settings and share the link again. Thank you.