Windows VM BSOD (KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED) (IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL)

User Support General
,
21

You can try to disable direct IO, build the package and install it in dom0 for a test.
I have btrfs as well and Windows worked after installing Xen PV driver, but some of the Windows functionality was broken after this, I guess I was just lucky that things that were broken for me were not critical. Seems like the btrfs issue could break some random things in Windows which could cause it to not boot at all as in your case.

22

Thanks, but it looks I am not in a position to try to do it now. How can I know when this is implemented by the devs?

23

@sweet.cheddar Thank you for sharing what you have tried. I have exactly the same problem. BSOD with windows 11 hvm. On the same system, the NV41.
Fresh installed hvm without QWT.
Could you finally get it working ?

1 Like
24

Did you try this?

25

No, thank you for the hint. I will try tomorrow and report back !
Sorry, I did forget. I have already added the mentioned line there and reloaded.
Did not help unfortunally.

26

Hello,
I havenā€™t manage to get it working.

I contacted nitropad a year ago, see:

Then they said that it seems to be a CPU compatibility problem.
Iā€™m trying to contact them again about this issue.

Keep us posted if you have something new from your side :slight_smile:

1 Like
27

Does windows 10 vms have the same issue ?

28

I have a feeling this is a firmware issue. Presumably the Nitropads experiencing this are using Dasharo / coreboot? I have this same issue with the MSI Pro Z790-P DDR5. But only using Dasharo. Stock BIOS is fine.

Are you able to use a non-coreboot based BIOS and see if the issue persists? If it does not, then the bug is presumably in coreboot (or Dasharo, which is a coreboot fork)

It would be helpful also if you state the CPUs your using, maybe some Intel generations are affected and some not. This would be good evidence building for a bug report.

1 Like
29

The laptop im using is with coreboot and heads.
I have tested qubes on at least 3 other computers without issues on the windows vm.
I donā€™t have the time to reflash the NV41 bios for the moment.
The CPU is the i7-1260P

30

Unfortunatly yes. I just tried Windows 10 hvm.
It gets BSOD: KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED after a few minutes

1 Like
31

Here are my system specs:

Brand: Nitrokey
Model: nitropad-nv41

CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Coreā„¢ i7-1260P
Chipset: Intel Corporation Device [8086:4621] (rev 02)
Graphics: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] [8086:46a6] (rev 0c) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

RAM: 65381 Mb

QubesOS version: R4.2.4
BIOS: Dasharo Nitrokey-v2.5.0
Kernel: 6.12.42-1
Xen: 4.17.5

With Heads all configured by Nitrokey.

1 Like
32

Thank you for reporting to Nitrokey !

1 Like
33

Thanks. I forgot to mention my system specs,

Brand:		Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
Model:		MS-7E06
BIOS:		Dasharo Heads-v0.2.0-2796-g17c3c42
Xen:		4.17.5
Kernel:		6.12.42-1

RAM:		130983 Mb

CPU:
  Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900K
Chipset:
  Intel Corporation Device [8086:a700] (rev 01)
VGA:
  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Baffin [Radeon Pro WX 4100] [1002:67e3] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

So looks like weā€™re all using Dasharo based systems on CPUā€™s Alder Lake or above.

I would be concerned this is an issue with Heads, as weā€™re all using it. However I used Dasharo UEFI (this release to be exact) and still had BSOD in Windows HVMā€™s.

If we can gather system specs from others experiencing this then we can make a strong argument for this to be investigated. Especially as the Nitropads are Qubes certified and expected to function with all Qubes features.

I feel this is a bug with Dasharo, but I might be wrong. Even better would be others (like myself) than can compare Dasharo and vendor BIOSā€™s to see if this issue is Dasharo specific.

1 Like
34

Here are my system specs (results from the command ā€œqubes-hcl-reportā€ in dom0)

[.@dom0]$ qubes-hcl-report 

Qubes release 4.2.4

Brand:		Nitrokey
Model:		nitropad-nv41
BIOS:		Dasharo Nitrokey-v0.2.0-1960-g151f000

Xen:		4.17.5
Kernel:		6.12.42-1

RAM:		32613 Mb

CPU:
  12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1260P
Chipset:
  Intel Corporation Device [8086:4621] (rev 02)
VGA:
  Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] [8086:46a6] (rev 0c) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
  

Net:
  Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0034] (rev 01)
  Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 15)

SCSI:


HVM:		Active
I/O MMU:	Active
HAP/SLAT:	Yes
TPM:		Device present (TPM 2.0)
Remapping:	yes
Certified:	no

Qubes HCL Files are copied to: 'dom0'
	Qubes-HCL-Nitrokey-nitropad_nv41-20250915-111858.yml		- HCL Info
35

Iā€™ve contacted dasharo in matrix (https://app.element.io/#/room/#dasharo-support:matrix.org):

Good morning,
First of all i am sorry if this is not the right way to ask for your help, please redirect me if its the case.

We are investigating an issue in qubes where windowsVM are having randoms BSOD.
We are discussing the issue here: Windows VM BSOD (KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED) (IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL)

We are suspecting it might be related to the hardware or how dasharo interacts with it.

We are 3 users atm using dasharo and facing the same issues

  • An user reported having this issues only using dasharo. With the stock bios is fine.
  • 2 laptops have an old version of dasharo (v0.2).
    However another one is using an updated version (v.2.5) and is having the same problem.
  • An user has determined that the problem doesnt comes from heads since without, only dasharo, the problem persists.

Have you faced similar reports ? do you think we are onto the right track to solve this issue ?