Swift 3 SF313-51 -bluescreens issue but no specific trigger, constant BSOD

Hello -

I'm hoping someone can maybe point me in a helpful direction or suggest something new. I have a Swift 3 (currently running Windows 11) that bluescreens all the time - not immediately, there's no specific trigger, but it will not run for any length of time without an eventual bluescreen. I've tried everything I can think of or find suggested anywhere to resolve it, but so far no luck. Some of the things I have tried:

Updating all the drivers - in various ways: whatever is on the Acer site for this model, whatever Windows offers through updates, and whatever the newest ones are on the manufacturer's site for whichever part
Downgrading all the drivers to Acer defaults for this laptop
Running with all stock Windows drivers
Doing fresh install(s) of Windows
Restoring to the original Acer factory image
Disabling whatever hardware components someone has suggested (Intel SST, Intel display audio, Atheros bluetooth, Realtek audio, etc.)
Disabling whatever software components someone has suggested (fast boot, power plans, hardware acceleration, etc.)
Testing EVERY component I can for a hardware failure
Repairing Windows in whatever way - reset, SFC, DISM, complete reinstall as mentioned above

I could go on... The main culprit in the crashes, or at least a component that isn't playing well with something else, seems to be the Intel UHD 620 display driver - if I switch the display driver to Microsoft Basic Display adapter, it won't bluescreen, but it also won't go to sleep anymore and there's no way to adjust the screen brightness.

If I do a full Acer factory restore the original image will be stable, but that's only if I don't apply any Windows updates - as soon as it applies updates (which it has to do because the factory version is super out of date) the bluescreens will start back up. I can't pinpoint the exact update, but I'm not sure how critical that is to know, since running on a 4 year old version of Windows 10 isn't really a workable option.

Does anyone here have any other thoughts or ideas (even vague ones)?

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title and issue detail]

Accepted answers

All comments

Balatekie

Hello!!

@jbreaker,

From description shared, I see that you have almost tried everything to resolve the issue. I suspect the issue might be bad sectors in HDD. As a work around, try replacing the HDD and check. That might help.

Regards,

Balatekie

jbreaker

Thanks! The laptop has an SSD, though, which I have run multiple scans on with various tools and not found any issues. (I thought that SSDs handled bad sectors innately, but I could be wrong. Either way, if there are some, they are not showing up in any way I can detect them.)

billsey

Can you take a picture of the BSOD? There are usually details on it that help in diagnosis. There are also tools that can help a lot by reading the mini-dump file created by the crash... If it is certainly the GPU then it could be hardware, and replacing the CPU with another by dropping a replacement motherboard in is likely the only solution.

jbreaker

The message on the BSOD varies, usually it's KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED but sometimes it switches to IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL or SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION. There's no codes or anything else on those screens, but I have analyzed the dumps in WinDbg, BlueScreenView, and WhoCrashed, who all say that the crashes are of indeterminate cause, but with the error always in ntoskrnl.exe.

I am only going on the assumption of it being display driver related because the error doesn't occur if I am not using the Intel display driver. It will also occur more often with some versions of the Intel drivers and less often with others - just never with the Microsoft Basic Display Driver. I would just go with the basic driver and call it done if it wasn't SO basic, but I also haven't found any way of enabling any additional functionality in it.

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1158324#Comment_1158324

Have you done a hard reset, with taking the main battery and bios battery out and leaving these batteries disconnected for 15min. Also, you could have problems with the ram onboard memory voltages and errors that cause bsods. With the Intel graphics, roll back the drivers systematically through Device Manager and see which driver works best, if the Intel offical driver or the Microsoft installed Intel driver.

jbreaker

I have not done that (hard reset) - thanks for the suggestion! I'll give that a try. I'm not sure there's much I can do about onboard memory voltages, though, if that is the problem.

I have rolled through the display drivers, though - I think I've tried more or less every release of the Intel display drivers that supports the UHD 620, but between the factory installed driver, the updated ones Windows suggests, and the ones from Intel's site, none of them seems to work. The Intel site ones work worst (crash soonest/most), and the Acer factory ones work best (longest runtime before a crash), but that's not much of a distinction since both still crash.