Cannot boot to Windows 10 - BSODs

ShadowGamer · April 24, 2017

I am having difficulty booting into windows 10 as I get a BSOD no matter what I try. When I boot normally, the computer turns on fine, but a few seconds after I login, I get "SPECIAL_POOL_DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION". This appears to have to do with drivers, so it would make sense that it is only happening after I login, and not on the login page itself. I tried booting into safe mode using the startup settings options (shift click restart), however when I get to the screen where you select the boot option you want with a number or FN keys, it does not do anything after I press I press 4 or F4 (or any other number). I tried a different keyboard and have the same issue. I then tried booting to a windows recovery usb, and get "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL". By messing around with boot options, I eventually got to the USB, but then realized I couldn't do an in place upgrade with a usb - you can only do it from a working windows installation. I then tried using command prompt "bcdedit /set {default} safeboot minimal" but this did not help me get into safe mode. Does anyone have any tips they could give me to fix this problem?

My computer specs are:

i7 6700k

Gigabyte H170M-DS3H

Asus GTX 1080 Strix A8G

2x8 Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4

Mira Yurizaki · April 24, 2017

This may not be a driver problem, but a hardware issue. Have you run your RAM through a few rounds of MemTest or similar?

Colin Donoghue · April 24, 2017

Is everything seated properly like the ram or your video card or any hardware just check if everything plugged in properly

Colin Donoghue · April 24, 2017

and you could try moving the memory around to check if it is the socket and you could try it with one memory stick in.

ShadowGamer · April 24, 2017

18 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

This may not be a driver problem, but a hardware issue. Have you run your RAM through a few rounds of MemTest or similar?

I have not tried a memory test, but have tried using only one of the two sticks, and in different slots. I will do a memory test soon. Also, I can successfully boot into a Linux live USB without it crashing at all.

16 minutes ago, Colin Donoghue said:

Is everything seated properly like the ram or your video card or any hardware just check if everything plugged in properly

Yes. I just double checked, and get the same issue.

ShadowGamer · April 24, 2017

Update: Memtest86 passed successfully on both RAM sticks, so the issue must be Windows related. Any additional help would be greatly appreciated.

ShadowGamer · April 26, 2017

If anyone has new help, it would be greatly appreciated. I have added a few minidump files to this post (note that they are all created by the same blue screen, SPECIAL_POOL_DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION. Note that I was not able to get into windows to get these files-instead I used a recovery usb to copy them to another usb drive. I also tried this guide (again launching the program from cmd): https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-update/driver-verifier-tracking-down-a-mis-behaving/f5cb4faf-556b-4b6d-95b3-c48669e4c983 but it didn't do anything. Thanks in advance!