BSOD on bootup when enabling PSS Support in UEFI

Nicholas Steel 336 Reputation points
2020-10-03T03:05:12.97+00:00

If I enable PSS Support in my ASUS Crosshair Hero VIII (WiFI) motherboards UEFI, the computer will BSOD on bootup. The BSOD is the same error every time and seemingly occurs at the same point in the boot process.

SYSTEM THREAD EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED

I'm not 100% certain but I believe the issue began when I installed Hyper V in Windows several months ago. Uninstalling Hyper V doesn't undo the various changes it makes to the O/S so the problem persists with it uninstalled.

The only known workaround:
Disable SVM (VT-x on Intel systems)

The UEFI, AMD Chipset drivers and Windows 10 have been updated several times since the problem was first noticed and the issue persists.

Full memory dump: https://mega.nz/file/i5BAiLza#Bv8ci-q0xSp4QWQZdtFibBEUtIZRkkRkNFo5nVNaWBc

Edit:

So, I narrowed the cause down even more. You need the following to trigger the BSOD:

Virtualization Based Security (VBS) active
PSS Support enabled in UEFI
SVM enabled in UEFI (required for VBS)

Disabling any of the 3 things will resolve the BSOD issue.

Hyper-V is a program that can enable Virtualization Based Security (VBS) and keeps it enabled despite best efforts to disable VBS (unless you uninstall Hyper-V), there are other optional Windows components that'll also enable VBS which was confusing me during my testing as I didn't realize they did.

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