Windows 10 BSOD – How to Fix MEMORY_MANAGEMENT and ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY Errors

bsodmemory managementwindows 10

So after 3 years of using a fresh install of Windows 7 x64, I've to upgrade to Windows 10 because of job reasons.

I downloaded the latest Windows 10 Pro build image (1803) from Microsoft and used Rufus 3.1 to create a bootable flash disk.

I did a fresh install on my SSD (formatting it previously) and after a few days of using the computer I started to get random BSODs. Around 1 or 2 per day.

The BSODs error are either MEMORY_MANAGEMENT or ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY.

Things I've tried:

  • Run 2 passes of Windows Memory Diagnostic. No errors.
  • Run sfc /scannow. No errors.
  • Updated the GPU drivers to the latest (Nvidia Geforce GTX 970)
  • Updated BIOS to latest version (from 0802 to 0803 on ASUS Z-97E)

I might have had just a couple of BSODs over the 3 years of Windows 7 so I don't think it's a hardware related problem. The BSODs started just after fresh installing Windows 10.

How do I open the MEMORY.DMP generated by Windows and what do I look in there to see what's causing the BSODs?

Anything else I can try?

UPDATE
I've opened C:\MEMORY.DMP with WinDbg x64 and here's the result:
https://pastebin.com/B2pS9VZt

UPDATE 2
I've just had another BSOD. This time it was SPECIAL_POOL_DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION.
Dump here: https://pastebin.com/0hckXpqP

UPDATE 3
Minidumps files

UPDATE 4
I've run memtest all night and I've a lot of errors. I guess I do have faulty RAM. Are we sure this is faulty RAM right? It'll get fixed once I replace it right? No way to know which stick/s are faulty? Have to remove them and run memtest again to know which one?
Here are the results: http://ancient-name.surge.sh/

Best Answer

The most likely cause of this type of crash is defective memory. As suggested by harrymc, the first thing to try is generally to run a memory testing program, such as Windows Memory Diagnostic (included in Windows), the original MemTest86 (maintained by PassMark Software), or the open-source Memtest86+. (I've added this section for the benefit of other readers here who may be experiencing similar problems but not have tried memory testing.)


The question author can skip this section. It is being retained for reference by other readers.

If the memory test passes, you may have a faulty processor.

The processor's integrated memory controller (IMC) can sometimes cause memory problems. Simple memory operations like reading data from particular memory locations may work normally, but the processor's ability to perform essential memory management operations, including virtual memory, aren't tested by memory testing programs.

Another possibility is a faulty cache. Caches are small amounts of memory inside the processor used to accelerate memory accesses. Although your processor should be able to detect cache errors (and generate a machine-check exception when that happens, causing a WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR BSOD), it is not impossible for data in cache to get corrupted and cause memory corruption without the processor itself noticing. That, too, would not be detected by memory testing software.

To check the IMC, download Intel's processor diagnostic program and run an IMC test. To check the processor caches, download Prime95 and run the small FFTs torture test (your processor may get very hot or the fans may run loud; this is normal). If either test fails, you'll probably need to replace the processor. (I'm assuming the processor and memory are not overclocked or otherwise being operated outside of specifications.)


Since you've run a memory test and have found errors, it should be pretty obvious that one or more memory modules need to be replaced. I can glean more information from the report you've posted.

The errors occur at one particular region of the memory, around 0x19BDD79F0, which would limit the problem to one module. The address suggests, but does not confirm, that the problem is in one of the Patriot Memory modules.

Because memory on most systems, including yours, works best in pairs, try removing both modules of either brand and rerun the test. If that doesn't work, reinstall the modules you removed and remove the other pair. If the problem clears up, you can use the system normally until you get replacement memory modules.


I should note that Windows 10 uses more advanced memory management techniques, including virtual memory compression to maximize performance on systems with limited memory. Although your system has 16 GB of memory, Windows will still compress the data in memory by default (my desktop has 32 GB and is no different here). Memory errors are detected readily during compression and decompression of data and will immediately cause the operation to fail, causing the system to crash. Memory errors affecting uncompressed application or other data would "simply" result in application crashes or corrupted files (though it can still cause OS crashes). For this reason, Windows 10 is more sensitive to memory errors than previous versions of Windows.

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