Windows 11 24H2 Could Cause Issues on Your PC If You Have a Specific SSD.

The new Windows 11 update, known as 24H2, has arrived, but not without certain issues. Several users have expressed their dissatisfaction on various forums, reporting frequent occurrences of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) since installing the latest version of the operating system. Although Microsoft has not officially acknowledged the problem, users have identified the cause and found a potential solution. So far, these failures seem to be limited to certain models of Western Digital SSDs, as other manufacturers have not reported issues.

In the WD community forums, users have shared experiences of experiencing BSOD with the error "critical process has failed" after updating to 24H2. Event Viewer logs following a crash show two types of errors: one related to NVMe storage drivers (stornvme) and another indicating, "The controller detected an error in the controller on \Device\RaidPort 1," which suggests a problem with the RAID driver that allows the PC to use multiple disks as a single storage unit.

The conflicts appear to originate from certain Western Digital SSDs that require a host memory buffer of 200MB (HMB). This feature allows the SSD to use a portion of the system's RAM to improve performance. Previously, in the 23H2 update, Windows 11 provided an HMB of up to 64MB without issues, but the new patch, which grants the full 200MB, seems to be the trigger for the failures.

Affected models include the WD SN770 and WD SN580, which are DRAM-less SSDs that take advantage of this HMB feature. For those experiencing this problem, the best option currently is to roll back the update. Microsoft may be considering blocking PCs with these SSDs from receiving the update while they seek a solution. Alternatively, some users in Western Digital forums have proposed a potential workaround, although this involves modifying the system registry, which can be risky and may disable HMB, affecting the overall performance of the PC.

Additionally, reports have indicated that Microsoft is working on new artificial intelligence features, implementing a warning system in case devices do not meet the minimum requirements to run AI-based applications. An analysis of the latest Insider Build of Windows 11 reveals specific requirements for a future AI File Explorer feature, such as an ARM64 processor, 16GB of RAM, 225GB of total storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite NPU.