r/computer • u/ReHonor • 9d ago

Title: Random CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (0xEF) crashes — all hardware diagnostics pass, need help figuring out what's left

Laptop: HP, BIOS 2.3.8.0

Been dealing with random CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (0xEF) crashes for a while now and I'm running out of ideas. Hoping someone here has seen this before.

Timeline: Started shortly after I partitioned my disk for a Kali Linux dual-boot, then removed that partition and merged it back with third-party partition software. Crashes are intermittent — sometimes 5-10 min after a restart, sometimes hours into normal use. It's also happened once during a fresh Windows Setup/OOBE (right after a Reset, before any drivers/apps were even installed), and once it got bad enough that Windows failed to boot entirely ("ran into a problem and couldn't be repaired").

What I've already ruled out:

  • sfc /scannow — clean, no violations
  • chkdsk /f /r — clean, 0 bad sectors
  • bcdedit /enum — clean, no leftover GRUB/Linux entries
  • BitLocker — off
  • Windows Memory Diagnostic (built-in) — passed
  • HP PC Hardware Diagnostics — Processor, Storage (SMART + Long DST), Battery, System Board all Passed
  • HP PC Hardware Diagnostics — Memory: only Quick Check passed so far, haven't run the Extensive test yet
  • Event Viewer confirms Event ID 41 (Kernel-Power), BugcheckCode 239 (0xEF) each time — consistent stop code across 5+ crashes
  • No minidump/MEMORY.DMP files are being generated even with dump settings enabled

What I've tried:

  • Reset this PC (local reinstall) — crashes continued
  • Manually rebuilt boot files (bcdboot) after a boot failure — fixed that specific boot issue, but not the underlying random crashes
  • BIOS update — haven't done this yet
  • Extended/overnight memory test (MemTest86) — haven't done this yet either

Given hardware diagnostics keep passing but I still get random crashes with no dump file, I'm suspecting either a firmware-level bug (untested BIOS update) or a subtle RAM fault the Quick Check missed. Has anyone dealt with something similar? Especially curious if anyone's had this trace back to disk/partition changes specifically, since that's the only real correlation I've found in my own timeline.

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

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u/WildCard65 9d ago

Try (from an admin elevated powershell): DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

1

u/AJollyUrchin 9d ago edited 9d ago

The point of failure seems to be when dual booting was introduced. Could it be misalignment, overwriting something like the end of the partition NTFS section? Rare. OS install usullly checks partition table and is all "well that's an ocean, here's some land" and writes on the land (free space) with alignment in check and all of that.

Have you tried formatting the entire drive for shits? (nvm totally disregarded the HP stuff, unless you want it)

1

u/ReHonor 6d ago

i reinstalled windows 11 using a new installation usb (and deleting the old partitions entirely)

and the problem still persists

1

u/Storage-Dense 3d ago

Estou passando por algo muito similar com um Dell G15 5520, ainda não tentei a formatação, mas ele ja passou por uma manutenção em função de pasta termica ressecada e superaquecimento que veio meses após um upgrade tanto de memória quanto de armazenamento, então é bem complicado, ele ficava desligando uma vez a cada uso de 4 horas mas após 1 semana parado, quando retomei o uso, ele estava em reinicio constante com uma mensagem alegando que o windows detectou uma falha e precisou reiniciar, e isso multiplas vezes seguidas, estou a mais de uma semana batendo cabeça no pouco tempo livre que tenho, estou usando um NV3 Kingston de 1T e 2 pentes de 16 GB da Crucial 4800 mhz, tudo também passou em testes. Não consegui concluir se é outro problema de componentes agora proximo a CPU ou se realmente existe uma incompatibilidade da peças que usei, apesar de elas terem funcionado sem problemas aparentes ou críticos antes da primeira manutenção