HP 440 G9 DMA Protection Error

[Blue-IT]

A few of our HP 440 G9 laptops have started to crash with an error.

Here is the error we receive:

"DMA Protection

A Device attempted to access memory that it was not allowed to access"

The error seemed to show up after some users got an automatic windows updates and installed them. So, we would like to assume its due to the 2025-01 Cumulative Update Windows 10 22H2 (KB5049981) update because that was the only recent update that we could find. However, we could be wrong.

I have tried updating Windows and doing those HP Support driver updates but that did not seem to stop the crashes.

I read that you can disable DMA protection in the BIOS but we would like to avoid that step.

I guess we can also try rolling back the Windows update but if there is another way, please let us know.

From what I can tell this is only happening on our HP 440 G9 laptops. We have G10's and G11's in the field as well but they are not getting this crash.

Attached is a screenshot of the error*

[ECLEsq]

Same error, started 2 days ago, probook450 G9.  Disabling DMA seems risky (in that there is a chance that there is an attack, no?)

[Jupitero]

Hello,

Other people are having the same problem:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/HP-450-G9-Error-DMA-Protection/...

Check carefully the Windows Update history: all modern HP computers download their BIOS through Windows Update nowadays. Check the BIOS version as well - if you're on the latest BIOS version (which was released last month) and you haven't updated the BIOS via any other way, then it must have come thru Windows Update.

Try rolling back to earlier BIOS version to see if it helps - if it does you need to block further BIOS updates until HP sorts this out and releases a fixed version.

HP has botched several BIOS updates in the last year or two. HP does not really monitor these forums so I would recommend everyone with this problem to open a support case with HP so that they understand the width of the problem.

[MinorDude]

We are having the same problem at our organisation. Seems to be affecting later G revision models. Like most others, we have tried all possible updates, but refuse to turn off DMA protection. It's not ideal but we have found that updating to Windows 11 fixes the problem.

[JAT-NE]

My laptop has this error and reboots itself. It is happening more frequently - 3 times this weekend already! Please provide a corrective update.

[curleys]

we have about 3000 440 g9's accross the fleet, staff and student and almost all are having this issue. Mitigating the crashing has been at least seemingly successful by turning off both virtualization options as well as the DMA protection in the bios as other have suggested but obviously that's not a great solution (not to mention it requires typing bitlocker keys in upon the next boot).

All my affected machines are on either bios revision 13 or 12 from december and september 2024 respectively. My machines are a mixture of win 10 and 11, some entra/intune (staff) controlled and some AD (student).

I noticed a new bios hit the hp driver website for this unit on feb 11th, I'm about to start testing it but it's presidents day so the schools are out. Has anyone else had any luck yet? specifically the new 01.14.00 Rev.A bios release.

[baseball123]

DMA error can also be caused by a peripheral plugged into USB, but also an SD slot.  I thought this manufacturer "device" plugged into the slot which is not labeled "SD" is causing the error?  DOes anyone else notice this SD slot is cover or filled in from the factory.  Seems like when they changed the SPECS from the 440 G8 to 440 G9 they did away with the SD expansion slot, but the slot is still there, but whatever is in there cannot be removed and may be causing the DMA error?  

[MrMatt1906]

Had this happening on a bunch of HP 450 G8's G9's and G10's. We found out the issue on our end was users did not update past windows 21h2 prior to it reaching end of life. Since it will not update to a newer version automatically anymore (windows will state that its up to date even though it is not, but also says missing important security updates), we had to do in place upgrades using an ISO (while keeping their data and apps in tact). It takes awhile but this resolved all the DMA bluescreens for us.

I should mention that many of the users couldn't update past windows 11 21h2 due to the windows 11 update and hp partition being to small issue (Microsoft released an update that was too large for the HP recovery partition). But we found a workaround to make enough room on the partition that would allow the update/ISO upgrade if needed. 

[MrMatt1906]

I should mention that many of the users couldn't update past windows 11 21h2 due to the windows 11 update and hp partition being to small issue (Microsoft released an update that was too large for the HP recovery partition). But we found a workaround to make enough room on the partition that would allow the update/ISO upgrade if needed. 

[SHThompson]

If you are changing a setting that will cause Bitlocker to trigger, then if you have admin credentials you can suspend Bitlocker for the next Boot.

That should save you some typing.