Alienware 16X Aurora RTX 5070 Laptop GPU : WHEA 17 PCIe errors , CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED BSODs, OCCT VRAM cashes, random reboots
Hello,
I’m experiencing severe instability on my Alienware 16X Aurora AC16251 with an NVIDIA RTX 5070 Laptop GPU.
Symptoms:
- BSOD: CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (0xEF / BugcheckCode 239)
- Kernel-Power 41 critical events
- WHEA-Logger Event ID 17
- random reboots/crashes during gaming
- now occasional crashes even outside games
The crashes were initially reproducible after around 30-35 minutes (always this timeframe) in games like:
- Victoria 3
- Civilization VI
I also previously had crashes/freezes specifically:
- when alt-tabbing in Valorant (crashes)
- when launching/quitting Valorant (crashes)
- during iGPU <-> dGPU switching
Another abnormal symptom: when the laptop switches between integrated graphics and the NVIDIA GPU, the screen can freeze for 10-20 seconds while I can still perform keyboard/mouse actions.
Troubleshooting already performed:
- clean NVIDIA reinstall with DDU
- two NVIDIA driver versions tested (595.71 and 596.49)
- NVIDIA App removed
- MUX switch set to dGPU only
- CPU turbo disabled
- PCIe Link State Power Management disabled
- SFC / DISM completed successfully
- Windows updates rollback attempts
Important findings:
- OCCT VRAM test generates hundreds of WHEA errors by 14min into a test, while a second test flat out crashed computer by 2 mins
- Event Viewer WHEA logs point to the NVIDIA GPU PCIe device:
VendorID: 0x10DE
DeviceID: 0x2D58
And as of today, the computer also crashes within the same 35min timeframe despite no game launched or OCCT test.
Has anyone experienced similar RTX 50 laptop WHEA 17 PCIe errors on Alienware systems?
EDIT: minidump files: https://www.mediafire.com/file/qh7l68gzxojbtgu/minidumpfiles.zip/file