Endless cycle of BSODs, WLAN-related, not fixed by driver updates

Question

For a few good months, my Lenovo T580 Windows 10 laptop has been affected by the problem of reocurring BSODs, with the error codes either CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (~80% of the cases) or BAD_SYSTEM_INFO_CONFIG (~20% of cases).

These BSODs trigger a reboot loop, whereby the PC would either:

• go into a BIOS-like BootMenu, with no useful options, from which the only way out was a button-power-off
• present options for emergency repair/safe start/refresh PC, etc, in a more graphical Windows-like interface. Unfortunately, no old enough system-restore point was available to be of help, and StartupRecovery also did nothing.
• display the text "Start PXE over IPv4" on black (freeze -> reboot needed)
• display the Lenovo logo with "Diagnosing your PC" or "Preparing automatic repair" (freeze)
• actually get to the Windows login screen, but after a few minutes crash with BSOD and repeat the whole cycle over

After 50 or so such turn-off/reboot cycles, I eventually booted stably in Windows (i.e. no BSOD within the first minute, nor later), but then got WLAN connectivity issues for a while (networks not seen, or can't connect). This whole problem somehow related to the WLAN card, because

• prior to a BSOD, a warning sign was always the WLAN icon showing the globe with the line through it, indicating lost connectivity
• another problem I've been having for just as long, was Gmail giving the "Temporary error" message. This was avoidable simply by opening Gmail in a new browser window (as opposed to tab), but is probably diagnostic of the larger problem

The problem still manifested at every return from standby/hibernate and at every reboot, although I did the following:

• updated all the drivers I could (including with Intel's driver management tool for the WLAN card, and with Lenovo's own driver manager)
• uninstalled and reinstalled the WLAN card from Device Manager
• ran MemTest 86 and the Comodo AV scan, both of which were clean.
• attempted a firmware upgrade of the SSD from Lenovo, but the readme says T580 stopped being supported

I managed to use the PC fine for a few weeks by simply leaving it on permanently, but as soon as I had to restart (e.g. Windows update), the same cycle repeated, and now it seems even after 50 cycles it won't boot stably again. EDIT: got it to boot stably but overnight it BSODed again, thus there's no real "stability"anymore. Ccurrently trying to retrieve data from it while in off-line mode, which will hopefully prevent the BSOD source if this is in fact from the WLAN card.

This problem can clearly no longer be worked around. The Refresh PC option (which from the description seems equivalent to a clean reinstall of Windows) is the last resort, but with this thread I want to ask if any other solution before that can be attempted, since reinstalling all the software and customisations on this PC would take a LOT of time. Thanks!

Answer 1

Ensure your laptop is dusted out and that temperature is not causing problems.

The problem still manifested at every return from standby/hibernate and at every reboot

Make sure your system's firmware (UEFI) is updated to the latest version and then reset all options to default in the firmware. This would help isolate the issue away from any firmware ACPI issues. ACPI/firmware is involved anytime your computer powers up or down.

attempted a firmware upgrade of the SSD

If you think the SSD is causing an issue, you can try booting a live USB Linux operating system and see if it crashes randomly there.

It could be that the Wifi card is not well supported in Windows 10 or is having a hardware issue. Replace the Wifi card or disable it and use a USB wifi adapter.

If you still get crashes while using a different Wifi adapter, try the Refresh option or reinstall Windows. If still problematic after that, you're looking at a motherboard-level issue.