HP Spectre x360 BSOD and 3fo

[scottywald]

My HP Spectre x360 13t-ae000 has randomly been giving a BSOD "CRITICAL PROCESS DIED" and restarting. This can occur every few minutes or it can work for hours before blue screening. About 50% of the time, it will go to a black screen after the blue screen and say "No Bootable Disk(3f0)." This typically resolves itself after I press the power button, and the laptop will boot normally again.

I have completely reset the computer, erased the hard drive, and reinstalled windows. I have also updated to Windows 11 to see if this would resolve the problem. I still receive the same blue screen at random times. It is not correlated to any program or driver. 

I am suspecting that the SSD has gone bad since I am receiving the "3fo" error. However, when I run the HP system diagnostic, it passes the SMART check, Short DBT, Optimized DST, and Long DST check, and memory extensive test. I currently have the system extensive test "looping until error" to see if it will eventually find the error. It has gone 10 iterations without error.

I am considering replacing the SSD, but I want to be sure this is the problem before I make that investment. Any help is appreciated!

[WAWood]

@scottywald 

According to the specs I found, your laptop has an NVME SSD -- and the serious problem with those is that they can get VERY HOT -- so much so that they can destabilize and fail.  When the PC then shuts down and the SSD cools down, the problem disappears.

If you turn it on a let it idle and the problem does not happen, then excess heat is the issue -- and replacing the SSD will do nothing to fix this.

I have two of these in my new desktop and BOTH have heatsinks attached to them. I suspect the one in your laptop does NOT, and most likely, there is no room to attach one.  And even then, you have to pry it apart to get to the SSD -- and that voids any warranty on it.

Since you mention Windows 11, I am presuming this is still new enough to be under the 12-month warranty, so you need to go online and contact HP about returning it or replacing it.  Sorry, but we can not do that for you -- as we are not allowed to intervene in warranty or return issues.

USA/Canada HP contact info: https://support.hp.com/us-en/contact-hp

[scottywald]

Thank you very much for your help. It is not actually a new laptop. I only recently updated it to Windows 11 when troubleshooting. I believe I purchased it in 2018, and I have verified that the warranty is expired. 

I hadn't considered that heat could be the issue. It's good to know that before I drop $100 on a new SSD. Could the reason this has only started occuring recently be that debris has bult up in the cooling vents? I will give it a thorough clean and see if this solves it.

The BSOD can also happen suddenly immediately after booting Windows and it has been off for a while. I can't imagine the SSD could heat up enough to fail in this time, or could it?

[scottywald1 · Accepted solution]

For others that might find this post, here is what ultimately solved the problem for me:

The problem turned out NOT to be heat related. I gave the laptop a thorough clean and downloaded a temperature monitor. The CPU temperature stayed within normal ranges and the SSD temperature hovered between 30-40 degrees Celsius. There was no cause for alarm with the temperature of the computer.

It was SSD related. What solved it was re-seating the SSD, or simply removing it and putting it back in. I am not sure how this solved it, but I assume the connection was faulty and removing it and reinserting it rectified the issue. The computer had travelled a lot in backpacks and survived several falls. I assume the SSD had fallen slightly out of place over time and just needed to be re-seated securely. This is the video I followed and it worked like a charm (https://youtu.be/PAlJUdYjk3Y). I picked up a cheap computer toolset at Best Buy and the total project cost me $20 as opposed to over $100 for a new SSD or a repair technician. Of course, attempt this at your own risk. You may injure yourself or damage your computer. It will void the warranty too, of course, but if it is already expired there is nothing to lose.