BSOD (Bad Pool Caller) every time I try to connect Ethernet (At University)

[devidranity]

(Please understand that I'm a complete novice with this stuff, so if my terminology is wrong I apologise)

Hey there, I've just arrived at my Uni and am settling into my room. However when I tried to connect the Ethernet I noticed that my brand new Dell Laptop will BSOD on startup normally soon after I get to my home screen. Truthfully I never attempted to connect via Ethernet whilst at home, so I do not know if this has always been an issue.

I have these dump files here, however I don't really know much about reading through them myself.
Dump Log Folder

Any kind of advice or explanation would be great. The Wifi is working perfectly fine, it's only the Ethernet. I've already had multiple issues with this laptop and am aiming for compensation from Amazon, so if it is a hardware issue I would like to know so I can include it in my complaints!

 

[Sedivy]

Which windows version is this?
Anyway, here's the nice troubleshooting suggestion for this:
https://www.deskdecode.com/bad-pool-caller-0x000000c2/
My advice would be, since you know this happens with your network card, update your network drivers asap. Go onto your laptop support site, and download latest network drivers. If it doesn't help, follow the rest of the troubleshooting from above list.
The drivers listed in your three dump files are intelppm.sys, rt640x64.sys and hal.dll
The rt one is realtek which is network adapter so you know it does have something to do with it so start there.

 

[axe0axe0]

Uninstall McAfee. All dumps blame McAfee drivers, possibly a reinstall will fix the problem.

 

[johnbl]

avast and McAfee installed
I would remove one (or both)

---------------------
bad pool caller is a device driver problem.
you can run cmd.exe or powershell as an admin.
then run verifier.exe /standard /all
this will force the system to bugcheck and name the driver that is freeing pool twice.

you also have this intel driver installed:
\SystemRoot\System32\drivers\Netwtw04.sys Wed Sep 7 09:46:36 2016
I think it is a
Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software

you might check to see if dell has a update or go to the intel download and try their version:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/

(just guessing it is this wireless driver that is the problem)
note: when you install the new driver make sure it is the selected one in device manager. Ie, you install the new driver then you still have to select it as the default one to use.

 

[devidranity]

avast and McAfee installed
I would remove one (or both)

---------------------
bad pool caller is a device driver problem.
you can run cmd.exe or powershell as an admin.
then run verifier.exe /standard /all
this will force the system to bugcheck and name the driver that is freeing pool twice.

you also have this intel driver installed:
\SystemRoot\System32\drivers\Netwtw04.sys Wed Sep 7 09:46:36 2016
I think it is a
Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software

you might check to see if dell has a update or go to the intel download and try their version:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/

(just guessing it is this wireless driver that is the problem)
note: when you install the new driver make sure it is the selected one in device manager. Ie, you install the new driver then you still have to select it as the default one to use.

I completely removed McAfee and the Ethernet seems to work fine now. Is there any particular reason why this is the case? And should I follow the other instructions just in case?

 

[axe0axe0]

Looks like a bug in the McAfee driver, basically this driver frees memory which for some reason goes wrong after freeing memory that have a tag.

Using parameter 4 of the bugcheck, it seems that the address of the pool being deallocated is valid.

0: kd> !poolval ffffb60b4c39fd88
Unable to get NonPagedPoolStart
Unable to get NonPagedPoolEnd
Unable to get PagedPoolStart
Unable to get PagedPoolEnd
Pool page ffffb60b4c39fd88 region is Unknown

Validating Pool headers for pool page: ffffb60b4c39fd88

Pool page [ ffffb60b4c39f000 ] is VALID.

Looking at the pool itself, the address with the * is the same as argument 4.
The bugcheck says that this address is being used for double freeing, but I don't see a double free within the stack. It rather seems this address is allocated.

0: kd> !pool ffffb60b4c39fd88
Unable to get NonPagedPoolStart
Unable to get NonPagedPoolEnd
Unable to get PagedPoolStart
Unable to get PagedPoolEnd
Pool page ffffb60b4c39fd88 region is Unknown
ffffb60b4c39f000 size: 970 previous size: 0 (Allocated) Thre
ffffb60b4c39f970 size: 40 previous size: 970 (Free ) MFE0
ffffb60b4c39f9b0 size: 80 previous size: 40 (Allocated) Sema
ffffb60b4c39fa30 size: 50 previous size: 80 (Allocated) VadS
ffffb60b4c39fa80 size: a0 previous size: 50 (Allocated) Vad
ffffb60b4c39fb20 size: a0 previous size: a0 (Allocated) Vad
ffffb60b4c39fbc0 size: a0 previous size: a0 (Allocated) Vad
ffffb60b4c39fc60 size: 120 previous size: a0 (Allocated) MmCa
*ffffb60b4c39fd80 size: 60 previous size: 120 (Allocated) *NDnd
Pooltag NDnd : NDIS_TAG_POOL_NDIS, Binary : ndis.sys
ffffb60b4c39fde0 size: a0 previous size: 60 (Allocated) Vad
ffffb60b4c39fe80 size: c0 previous size: a0 (Free ) MFE0
ffffb60b4c39ff40 size: c0 previous size: c0 (Free ) MFE0

As its a minidump we're looking at which cannot provide in-depth information we can't see where the double freeing happened.

 

[johnbl]

virus scanners often get blamed for problems that are actually caused by network drivers.
I would update the network driver and see if the virus scanner works correctly.
I do this just because older network drivers also causes problems with streaming software.

avast and McAfee installed
I would remove one (or both)

---------------------
bad pool caller is a device driver problem.
you can run cmd.exe or powershell as an admin.
then run verifier.exe /standard /all
this will force the system to bugcheck and name the driver that is freeing pool twice.

you also have this intel driver installed:
\SystemRoot\System32\drivers\Netwtw04.sys Wed Sep 7 09:46:36 2016
I think it is a
Intel® PROSet/Wireless Software

you might check to see if dell has a update or go to the intel download and try their version:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/

(just guessing it is this wireless driver that is the problem)
note: when you install the new driver make sure it is the selected one in device manager. Ie, you install the new driver then you still have to select it as the default one to use.

I completely removed McAfee and the Ethernet seems to work fine now. Is there any particular reason why this is the case? And should I follow the other instructions just in case?