ive done EXTENSIVE troubleshooting
- Confirmed in Event Viewer: Kernel-Power Event 41, BugcheckCode 0, WHEABootErrorCount 0 — Windows detected no fault at all, the system simply stopped
- Reinstalled GPU drivers with DDU (full clean wipe and reinstall)
- Ran Dell SupportAssist full scan and BIOS hardware diagnostics — no faults found
- Logged temps live with HWiNFO across many freeze sessions — no thermal, power, or current throttle flags ever triggered
- OCCT CPU stress test, 20 minutes — no freeze
- FurMark GPU stress test — no freeze, no errors
- Windows Memory Diagnostic — no RAM errors
- Verified OEM 330W charger, direct to wall; checked battery health via powercfg /batteryreport
- Checked DRAM voltage rails in HWiNFO logs — VDD/VDDQ/VPP flat within 0.03V, zero PMIC over/under-voltage flags across every session
- Disabled Radeon overlay and Instant Replay
- Disabled Xbox Game Bar and background recording
- Switched Apex to Borderless Windowed
- Set all Windows sleep and screen timeouts to Never
- Checked Task Scheduler for interval-based triggers — none found
- Closed all monitoring software (HWiNFO, AWCC) entirely before testing — froze anyway
- Deleted EAC registry entries and files, reinstalled clean via Steam Verify Integrity
- Added Windows Defender exclusion for the EasyAntiCheat directory
- Confirmed no inpoutx64.sys / RGB-class driver present on the system
- Disabled Realtek audio drivers
- Left PC idle for hours with no game running — zero freezes
- Full clean Windows reinstall (fresh OS, Steam, Apex, EAC, updated GPU drivers and BIOS) — froze at the main menu on the fresh install
- Tested via both Steam and EA App — identical behavior on both
- Professional fan cleaning and thermal repaste — HWiNFO confirmed meaningfully lower sustained temps afterward; freeze unchanged
- Updated Realtek Ethernet driver; then disabled the Ethernet adapter entirely — froze both times
- Updated Qualcomm Wi-Fi and Bluetooth drivers to latest Dell OEM versions — froze
- Disabled Bluetooth adapter — froze
- Disabled Memory Integrity / Core Isolation — appeared to help initially, but see #29
- Ran Driver Verifier, which produced a symbol-resolved boot crash: BugCheck 7E, STATUS_BREAKPOINT, VerifierExt!HvciCheckPoolType → NxBounceBufferPool::Initialize in netadaptercx.sys. Attempting to run Verifier during actual gameplay fails — EAC refuses to launch whenever Driver Verifier is enabled anywhere on the system, regardless of which drivers are targeted. This is why no crash dump of the real freeze exists
- Fully eliminated HVCI: Memory Integrity off, Hyper-V / Virtual Machine Platform / Windows Hypervisor Platform unchecked, bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off, virtualization disabled in UEFI. Verified with Get-CimInstance Win32_DeviceGuard → SecurityServicesRunning : {0}. Still froze at 9:12 — HVCI is not the cause
- Captured 535 seconds of network traffic in Wireshark through a freeze. Network is completely healthy to the final second: Steam ACK at T-3.2s with 42ms RTT, DNS resolving at T-12.7s, no retransmissions, no stalls, no unanswered requests. Last packet is an ordinary FIN from my machine. The network doesn't fail before the system does — it gets cut off mid-conversation. Also notable: that session had essentially no game traffic, meaning it froze at a menu with no load
Alienware m18 R1 (AMD) — Ryzen 9 7845HX, Windows 11 25H2 build 26200.9168, BIOS 1.25.0,
