Something weird happening with WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR

Question

So 4 days ago I decided it was time for my annual clean installation of windows (10 pro). So I did the usual, booted into my usb Windows installer , ran a few diskpart commands including formatting and cleaing with secure wipe on all drives. And continued my installation of windows when I got in I obviously installed all my driver's. I then install my games and open one of them and within 10 seconds BSOD (WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR) so immediately I reboot check the minidump analyse it and see that there is an issue with a .dll which I traced down to be GPU related so I try all the troubleshooting functions SFC , DDU by 3dguru , ram diagnostics just incase it was the ram. No such luck. Issue kept occuring, so now I'm left with one of a few only logical explanations , you have to bear in mind that only a few hours ago before the wipe everything was fine so faulty hardware chances are extremely slim. My first explanation is that the GPU has died somehow but more reasonably , my installation of windows wasn't smooth and some file within the systems modules was malfunctioning. So I proceed to clean install windows again and the same thing is happening. I repeat this process daily for the last 3 days tying different things , with no luck at all. Until yesterday when I realised I'd been logging into another account to the one on the original installation with a different key attached to the account (both keys on both my accounts are genuine keys purchased by windows ) . So now I'm thinking surely this hasn't got to do with anything going on here but I give it a shot, I clean reinstall windows this time with my other account and key and sure enough all the issues had disappeared, last night all that I could think of was to explain how this account change has fixed the issue , if you know me in person I hate accidental debugging (I'm an a level phython programmer) I always must know the logic and computational reasoning behind every debug particularly this one which by this point had wasted upwards of 12 hours of my time on. So the next morning I'm still thinking and I could not take it I HAD to find out the reason behind this. So I clean reinstall windows yet again and boom BSOD starting again , this almost certainly confirmed the accounts are the reason for it but seeing as it was a system file I wasn't understanding why. So I wasn't having this I still needed to know the reason , I decided I'd take pictures of key data within "msfinfo32" and "about this pc" seeing as this issue was mainly showing within programs demanding 3d graphic engines and it was effecting my GPU mainly , I mainly recorded GPU information such as it's designated memory address range , it's .inf file and irq channel letting me know what the GPU was currently using to channel interior requests to the CPU which ultimately helps me understand what bus it's most likely to be using and other technical details I could use to resolve the issue. I then reinstall windows using the original installation account and again everything suddenly is working fine and I begin to compare my retrived data and I do notice something. The GPU had some differences in its data but the one that i want to focus on is it's .inf file name was different. This is important because as my hardware hadn't been changed windows would not randomly change the numbering of the inf files , this is because it dosent use a random integer to number them rather it uses a set algorithm that remains constant within the setup files to number them. Of course .inf files are directly linked to the presence of different hardware so I now think I have solved it. Of course the .inf files job is to help with driver matching and to handle logical interactions between the system and its hardware. So I then go to device manager and remove my GPU , restart so it reinstalls and my .inf file is now the same as on my original installation. However I still receive the bsods, my guess from this incident is that all of my hardware must be re detected by windows in order to reset thier inf files however this is obviously impossible as the CPU wouldn't be able to do that. So I have some questions here 1) can an expert tell me if my explanation for this incident is correct because I'm dying to know 2) what has my account or the key registered to it got to do with me bsoding as it only happens on the account that wasn't originally installed on my pc please explain in detail I'm 16 (old enough to understand ��) 3) why were my inf files different in the first place 4) have I just debugged windows if so I want a system development job asap �� 5) I can't provide the crash dumps because I'm currently running an installation of windows on the working account and I'm not going through hell just it get them although they were all related to the ntoskrnl.exe file and again due to my pc only crashing when the GPU was being used to high capacity I feel it was something to do with my GPU BUT I'm not certain because again even after fixing it's inf file it was crashing 6) again how has logging into an account with a different key magically fixed this it's genuinely driving me insane like pls help. ALSO idk if this information is of use but I had sync on my original installation of windows so when I reinstalled it on the original account my wallpaper and everything came back, there is no way on earth the system file arrangements were also synced?!?!?

Answer 1

Hi,

Sorry to hear you're having a problem.

You might want to take a look at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-fix-whea-uncorrectable-error-7c49d78a-2792-96cf-2268-abbe9d9eb29f

Also, which version of Windows 10 Pro are you using (to find out press the WindowsKey and R, then in the Run box type in winver.

This will raise a pop-up that shows your exact Windows 10 Version - it might be something like

Microsoft Windows
Version 20H2 (OS Build 19042.804)

Also, can you give some more information on your setup?

Motherboard, CPU, GPU, RAM this might also help to resolve your issue.

I hope this helps and hopefully we can get your machine back to full health.

Stay safe and warm regards,

Shabbir

Answer 2

Well, your troubleshooter journey is long and winding, fortunately the result is good.
For your questions:

1. of course, hardware especially graphics adapter and network adapters need to be detected and utilized fully, in order to give use best performance on games or daily work. After reinstall system, the first thing is installing/updating drivers from manufacturer website or Device Manager for these devices.
2. account issue is unusual in reinstall process, I suspect that you may override the old user profile into C partition User folder or didn’t format C partition during clean install. Clean install in my opinion is a reinstall method which wipe out all files in C partition then re-create them, including all previous user profile.
3. don’t use power saver plan after reinstall, this power plan will lower GPU’s performance and lead to some issue.
4. as an experienced game player, I think you know the significance of updating system and installing all runtime library environment, adding registry information of your games is another important thing.

Finally, about this concern:
“how has logging into an account with a different key magically fixed this”
Yes, it is wonderful. I haven’t see this situation before, because clean install is not upgrade install, we install system offline and format C partition, all previous files disappear. Even though we create a new account with the same name after reinstall, this account is entirely different with the old one. I can’t come up with an idea why changing a different key on new account can magically fix bsod.

Thank you for sharing a good reinstallation experience with us, I believe this case can help other community users.

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