Hi there,
Been experiencing daily random BSOD’s, referring only to ntoskrnl.exe, with GPU assisted video players such as VLC for the past +2 months which ultimately turned out to be Windows Power Profile related. The BSODs (with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL being the most common one) started around early April and initially thought that they must be due to some usual suspects for such issues like old drivers or BIOS, overheating, faulty memory, a Windows 10 update etc, but the system was completely stable through various CPU/MEM/GFX stress tests and could handle multiple hours of 3D gaming without an issue, but as soon as I started video playback there would be a random BSOD after 15-45 minutes of playback.
After updating every component driver/firmware I could think of, rolling back multiple Windows updates and restoring system early April state from a backup without solution, by chance I stumbled upon a random forum thread suggesting that the Windows 10 1909 update might remove AMD's Power Plan from Windows (Checked Window's Hide Aditional Plans drop down as well) and surely that was the case with my Windows as well. The tricky part was that for some reason the AMD Power Plan would not appear in my Windows when installing the AMD chipset drivers packages: 2.01.15.2138, 2.03.12.0657 or 2.04.04.111 - Have not tested with the latest AMD chipset package 2.04.28.626 yet, but would hazard a guess it won't install the AMD Power Profile 5.0.0.0 either. To workaround this, I had to manually extract and install the RyzenPPM.msi from an older Chipset driver package from Gigabyte for Windows 10 v.1903, and afterwards there has been no BSODs during Video Playback for 7 days now. So I think it is ok to conclude that the Windows Balanced Power Profile was the root cause for these issues.
I can only guess why these problems started few months back, most likely some Windows update removed the AMD Power Profile from Windows(?), but it would definitely seem that for some reason the latest Windows Default Balanced Power Plan does not work well with my older X370 motherboard chipset and the newer AMD Ryzen 3600 CPU combo. It is also very peculiar why these BSODs occurrect only with GPU assisted video playback, and not i.e while gaming.
Related to this, found an old 2018 thread here where amdmatt suggested that AMD's Power Plan settings have been added to Windows Balanced Power Profile with Windows 10 1803 aka Redstone 4 update. https://community.amd.com/message/2886848?q=power%20profile
So the questions are: a) Why doesn't the AMD Power Profile show up in Windows setting when installing AMD's latest Chipset drivers? b) If it is the case that the AMD power plan has been added to Windows default Balanced Power Plan by AMD and Microsoft, why do we even get an option to install AMD Power Plan with the AMD chipset drivers? And lastly the hardest one c) Why is the Windows default Balanced power plan causing BSODs only during GPU assisted video playback.
Thoughts?
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System specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming K3 (rev. 1.0), BIOS F50a with default settings + AMD 2.04.04.111 chipset drivers
Gigabyte GV-RX570GAMING-4GD with AMD drivers 20.5.1
Corsair 16GB (2 x 8GB) Vengeance LPX, DDR4, 3200MHz, CL16, CMK16GX4M2B, 3200C16
Windows 10 Pro (v.1909 buid 18363.836)
