WHEA-Logger flood - Event ID 17

[kindamad]

No one wants to mask the problem... it will always be there because the motherboard doesn't have the PCIe lanes, simple as that.  No one wants to use BCDedit or any other work around because not seeing the message in event viewer doesn't solve the problem. It will always be there until the next motherboard arrives (the proper motherboard for skylake).

[AndreiVR]

Let's try to clarify this a little. PCIe is a bus. A bus to which the devices connect. If the motherboard would not have the bus, the devices wouldn't work.

So you cannot say that the motherboard doesn't have the bus. It has, but it seems to have some issues. Maybe it doesn't have all the features required by more modern devices.

If you efectively disable the power-saving features of the wireless card, it works. So the problem is in the ability of the PCIe bus to correctly manage the power saving feature.

Without some design details I cannot really say if this is a hardware issue or a driver issue.

But for me personally this isn't such a big problem. The power saved with the wireless card power saving feature enabled isn't much, so I don't mind leaving that disabled. For the rest, the laptop works very well, so I don't see any performance degradation  caused by the motherboard.

[JeffreyVerzijl]

I find the earlier reactions concerning the laptop doesn't have PCIe bus ridiculous. I have replaced the standard m2 ssd for an Samsung Pro 950 nvme SSD which also works. Therefor I don't think the laptop doesn't have a PCIe bus..

Also when performing a benchmark with Crystaldiskmark I have the following throughput:

Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1719.067 MB/s
Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1554.240 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 460.674 MB/s [112469.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 304.101 MB/s [ 74243.4 IOPS]
Sequential Read (T= 1) : 1550.537 MB/s
Sequential Write (T= 1) : 788.202 MB/s
Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 54.615 MB/s [ 13333.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 167.617 MB/s [ 40922.1 IOPS]

Because of this transfer speeds the mainboard has a PCIe (4x) bus, otherwise I would have nowhere near these transfer speeds. I hope someone with technical knowledge or someone who knows more about the mainboard used who can comment on this? The Spectre x360 was designed with Microsoft, I therefor can't believe this problem is hardware related... (or sure do hope it's not..)

[kindamad]

Let's clarify and reread carefully... PCIe "Lanes" to/for the processor.

Surely the motherboard has a PCIe bus, but what we are specifically talking about is "Lanes" check how many "Lanes" Haswell has compared to Skylake to begin your investigation.

[kindamad]

To further clarify... the Skylake processor has more "Lanes" than the motherboard is designed for. Hence there are unused "Lanes" in the "Processor" itself by having a Skylake cpu sitting on a Hawswell era motherboard. Yes the processor works, but is losing some of the additional benefits of the Skylake platform... (without a dedicated Skylake motherboard) Additionally the processor is reporting this error and that is why the event viewer is flooded with the error message.

The motherboard in the HP G3's is not able to accomidate all of the extra features and benefits of the Skylake processor.

It is a "Hardware" issue which can not be resolved... it can only "masked" or "hidden" so one does not see it reporting in the event viewer. 

[AndreiVR]

First, I don't know if an older motherboard designed for the Haswell architecture would support a newer CPU. I cannot find this info.

But it this case I don't think it matters.

The error, at least in my case, comes from the Intel Wireless adapter.

If I disable the adapter, the error is gone.

If I disable the power saving feature of the Wireless adapter the error is gone.

So at least in my case it has nothing to do with the CPU. The CPU doesn't control the PCIe bus. Therefore it has no effect on the wireless power saving feature issue that causes the error (at least in my laptop).

[kindamad]

It is logic 101 when you understand platform architecture. You have to do a lot of reading to fully understand and make the deduction from what the error code is telling you.

Companies have been doing this for years on end since the 386 DX days... promising 486 upgradibility but by the time you buy a 486 CPU further advancements have been made to the platform. One still can see it all the time on desktop motherboard boxes sold in stores, the infamous "READY" keyword (as in DDR4 ready) or other marketing ploys.

[kindamad]

Putting a band-aid over a cut wound doesn't make the wound go away, only time will heal the wound 🙂

And that really is unfortunate for HP G3 and other early Skylake purchasers. HP's next Skylake models will not have the issue, by then the motherboard will have been redesigned but the processor will be exactly the same.

[AndreiVR]

"It is logic 101 when you understand platform architecture. You have to do a lot of reading to fully understand and make the deduction from what the error code is telling you."

Yes, usually you do but I don't think this is the case here. It is a simple matter of testing: wireless card disabled (or power saving disabled) = error gone (at least in my case).

Plus, the error logged in the system log clearly states the source of the error (device ID).

But if you have a deeper insight into this problem perhaps you can explain. I am really curious (and able to understand the technical details).

[kindamad]

Change out your wireless NIC then 😄 I'll send you 3 compatible cards I got from Amazon just so you can see the problem is not remedied. The problem is that the SD card reader is trying to operate on the same lane. It's been awhile since I returned the final guinea pig G3 laptop but if I recall removing the NIC card one is still presented with the error message in event viewer until the NIC card is physically removed and the SD card reader is disabled via device manager. 

There is no doubt that it is a hardware issue after you go through those steps... and there is no way to cover up this fact using a baid-aid in the form of a software patch that just tells your event viewer not to report the problem anymore.

 ---

Step 1.  Shut down machine, remove battery, remove NIC card,

Step 2.  Replace battery, boot to windows, open device manager, locate and disable SD reader.

Step 3.  Open event viewer and clear log.

Step 4.  Reboot machine then recheck evet viewer for PCIe hardware error message.

You now magically have functioning laptop that can see uptime without bogging out, unfortunetly you just don't have any wifi or (if anyone actually uses their SD card reader)  

Step 5.  Buy a USB wifi adapter for your brand new crippled laptop 🙂