Hey ,
Ran across something similar, fixed it and wanted to post how i did. I spent two whole days at it to finally come up with a solution.
Short story? The Adrenaline 2020 20.x.x drivers are the problem.
I haven't been using my desktop pc with much frequency since Christmas (this is important) and any infrequent use I made was basically a quick power on/off. This is relevant because Windows 10 update didn't have enough time to pull packages and install them.
Thanks to COVID, I had some free time and installed Half Life Alyx and started playing it. After the third day my PC started randomly black screening and rebooting. Upon reboot the ATI monitor popped up and mentioned Wattman had changed settings and were reset. Thinking that was unusual I went back to playing over the next three days and had one or two more random lockup/reboots.
Naturally being frustrated with this I downloaded the newest Adrenaline 2020 20.3.1 and ran the install hoping to resolve the issue. The install completed about 80% then gave me a BSOD.
With the stop code: SYSTEM SERVICE EXCEPTION
What failed: atikmdag.sys
The system would still run afterwards, but for indeterminable amounts of times before a BSOD lockup and reboot.
My troubleshooting steps involved:
Running the "Full system scan" random BSOD
sfc /scannow Registry Repair random BSOD
CHKDSK random BSOD
I tried removing and reinstalling. BSOD while installing.
I tried the stable Adrenaline PRO drivers. BSOD while installing
I tried uninstalling the program, then uninstalling the hardware profile from device manager. BSOD.
I tried using the Factory install option for a fresh install. BSOD.
I tried using the amd uninstaller first before installing. BSOD.
I tried using DDU to remove the drivers and fresh install. BSOD
The AMD "experts" suggest at this point reinstalling Windows.
I hadn't given in quite yet.
I opened the dxdiag and didn't glean much from that, but with a sizeable system dump sample growing I ran whatcrashed which still pointed to atikmdag.sys. Meanwhile all my searching turned up kept blaming that error on a Windows 7/10 migration problem or driver corruption. Most sources also pointed to the drivers being in C:\Windows\System32\ to replace and they weren't.
I started to dig through the Windows update history to find if there were any clues in there. Windows update showed the latest time I had updated the ATI drivers manually was December 12 2019. However I found an entry dated March 6th (coincidentally the first day my black screen lockups started) showing an update to the Radeon drivers. At that point I KNEW i was on to something.
Here are the steps I took next that fixed everything.
Uninstalled the AMD drivers.
Uninstalled the hardware profile from Device Manager.
Then ran Add new hardware, which identified the card as a Windows Default Device Driver.
Shut down the computer and removed the video card.
Started the PC using the onboard video. (thankfully had an HDMI out on it)
Started DDU in safe mode and removed all drivers (also selected the AMD folder remove and atikmdag options)
Reinstalled the video card and rebooted
Installed the Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.2 Recommended (WHQL) drivers dated 12/12/2019
Disabled further automatic hardware updates from Windows 10
My PC has run perfectly fine since.
Really hope this helps someone else having the same problem.
Good luck out there folks.
