A new update is reportedly causing serious issues for some machines running Windows 10. After recent updates, a mysterious Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error stopped Windows 10 devices from booting up properly.
According to the reports, the bug appears to stem from updates pushed by Trend Micro, Lenovo, Intel, and Microsoft.
While Windows 10 Blue Screen errors occur fairly regularly after Windows Updates on some devices, this error is particularly frustrating as users don’t know what went wrong.
The Blue Screen of Death error is triggered when users put their devices to sleep mode. So far, users have reported the problem with HP Envy x360, HP ProBook 650 G4, HP Elite x2 1012 G2, HP ProBook 650 G5, and HP EliteBook x360 1040 G6.
Dell users with Latitude 5500 are also reporting “PDC_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT” error after applying Windows 10’s May 2020 Update and recent updates.
“I’ve received at least two reports from colleagues with Latitude 5500 laptops of the pdc.sys BSOD with the PDC_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT error on Windows 10 2004, and had it happen to my Latitude 5500 also. The only test that made the BSOD stop was configuring the laptop to never go to sleep,” one user noted in the Dell forum.
Some users claimed that Trend Micro Apex (advanced automated threat detection) software is responsible for the Blue Screen of Death errors on Windows 10, while others are blaming updates released by Microsoft and Intel.
Fortunately, the bug does not appear to widespread and you can pause the updates until a fix is available.
If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to return back to the desktop after using Windows 10’s built-in Recovery options.
Lenovo’s BIOS update causes BSOD errors
Late last month, one Lenovo user reached out to us with complaints of Blue Screen of Death after a recent BIOS update.
According to Lenovo user’s reports in the forum (1, 2, 3), the Lenovo BIOS update may have corrupted the system partition and Windows 10 could not boot after the patch is applied.
Reports also suggest that might be a compatibility issue between the Lenovo BIOS update and Windows 10, and the problem stems from Lenovo’s faulty BIOS release.
“My IdeaPad 730S is updated to BIOS 8HCN36WW. Many other IpeaPad users did not report their BIOS versions. However, all these reported issues were results from Automatic Update associated with Lenovo’s Firmware (BIOS),” a disappointed Lenovo user told us in an email.
Lenovo users observed a number of Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) – and other critical errors – after applying a BIOS update via Lenovo Vantage app.
Based on reports, affected models include ThinkPad and Ideapad machines, including the popular Flex 5. If you haven’t applied the Lenovo BIOS update, make sure that you hit the pause button in the Lenovo app and start using Windows 10’s recovery solutions, such as a Recovery partition.
In most cases, Lenovo BIOS update should install without issues, but if your device is incompatible for some reasons, you should consider skipping the update for now.
