Apex Legends causing driver crash/failure
Im getting catastrophic failure of my wifi driver after 5-10 minutes of the game being launched. Ethernet driver remains fine and is a separate controller.
mobo: b550-f gaming wifi II
Wifi controller (integrated with mobo): RZ608 Wi-Fi 6E 80MHz
CPU: r7 5800x stock speeds
ram: 64gb 3600hz stock overclock
OS: windows 11 enterprise 24H2
Doesnt fail in other games that also run EAC like master chief collection.
Wifi driver is MediaTek RZ608 Wi-Fi 6E 80MHz, driver version 3.4.0.1268 20-05-2025. mtkwl6ex.sys.
This latest driver was obtained from microsoft catalogue, but ive tested every major 3.x.x release since 3.0.1 which is the earliest version and all crash the same way.
I have run an analysis on a kernel .dmp file to find there is likely a buffer leak that stacks up until the system crashes my driver. Analysis report in windows debugger !analysis showed this:
BUGCHECK_CODE: 0x15E (Miniport NBL Leak)
IMAGE_NAME: mtkwl6ex.sys
MODULE_NAME: mtkwl6ex
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: LKD_0x15E_Mini_Nbl_Leak_IMAGE_mtkwl6ex.sys
Event viewer doesnt return in crash errors, but it does throw a 5002 for mtkwlex if I try to interact with the drivers in anyway before entirely rebooting the adapter in device manager which fixes the error until I launch apex again.
I ran a WPR while testing that shows a clear halt in DPC interrupts as the ndis.sys driver fails. shown here at timestamp 390. Not shown is that Apex and EAC processors were still running as my internet connection is actually coming from my ethernet adapter which doesnt crash, allowing me to continue playing. Ofcourse if I connect to the internet via my wifi, I lose connection entirely.
Im willing to upload any .etl or .dmp files if requested. the WPR .etl is 24GB and ran for ~8 minutes. the .dmp I analyzed is 2GB.
edit: There is a forum post 3 months ago with similar issue. Apex Legends crashing my network adaptor | EA Forums - 12249353 but it got no response. There are similar reddit posts and niche forum posts elsewhere on the internet.
Attached is the WPA timeline of the exact point of failure.
At T ≈ 390.357s, a DPC path shows EasyAntiCheat_EOS.sys issuing IoGetDeviceProperty/registry opens for the Wi-Fi adapter, after which ndis.sys!ndisInterruptDpc calls into mtkwl6ex.sys. The miniport then calls NdisMSynchronizeWithInterruptEx → KeSynchronizeExecution, and inside that critical section mtkwl6ex.sys executes again. Immediately after this, NDIS DPC/ISR activity collapses and the adapter stops functioning. A separate kernel dump recorded 0x15E (Mini_Nbl_Leak) in mtkwl6ex.sys. Halo MCC (also EAC) does not trigger this path or failure.
