[Fix] steamxbox.sys Causes Blue Screen of Death

[AnyHoLiC]

Issue:

About a week ago, I got about 8 or 9 Windows blue screens of death. This only happened when I ran DS4Windows alongside Steam . At first, it only showed the following error:

 stop code: IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL 

After the sixth blue screen, it changed to this:

 What failed: steamxbox.sys
stop code: DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL 

I reinstalled Steam as well as the games, DS4Windows too but nothing worked.
(I've been using both for years with no issues. This is new and sudden).

Fix:

I found a proper solution. Autoruns[docs.microsoft.com]. It is a tool sponsored by Microsoft.

Credit:
Proper way to remove an old driver - superuser [superuser.com]

Steps:

1. Create a Windows manual restore point (Just in case).
   
2. Run Autoruns.exe as admin.
   
3. Navigate to "Drivers" tab.
   
4. In the "Filter' search box, write "steamxbox".
   
5. Uncheck the box next to "steamxbox". This will only disable the driver (Which I did).

This fixed the issue for me.

I hope it helps.

[Applefright]

I did this today and now my mouse and keyboard don't work anymore, so I can't control my PC. Any fix for this?

[Elucidator]

Applefright님이 먼저 게시:

I did this today and now my mouse and keyboard don't work anymore, so I can't control my PC. Any fix for this?

Look at the date of the thread.
2021.
In the mean time Steam has had many updates and fixes. This should not be an issue anymore; at least not the same issue.

You need to verify your steam installation or reinstall Steam to fix the missing files issue.

You will also need to re-enable the steamxbox driver.
---

DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL is a bluescreen error that happens when a 'driver' (usually a kernel level driver), attempts to access parts of the Virtual memory space where it has no access rights to.
'less or equal' refers to the access level rights.
In other words, it is a bug inside the program. You need to make sure you update the DS4Windows tool/driver, and you need to make sure Steam is good.

This error is very uncommon on Windows 11. It could be caused by a driver conflict as well. I don't know what you have on the system.

---
Figure out why you have this error specifically, because it is odd.
DS4Win and Steam's drivers do not normally cause this error, which means something is wrong.

I recommend reinstalling stuff if the error keeps showing up. And perhaps run WinDbg over the generated memory dump files to figure out the cause.

You may want to run memtest. Make sure the disks are still healthy (crystaldiskinfo), etc.


Edit:
Mods, if you see this, please close the thread. It's clearly confusing people.

[tintingaroo]

Applefright님이 먼저 게시:

I did this today and now my mouse and keyboard don't work anymore, so I can't control my PC. Any fix for this?

I take it you didn't create a restore point?
I'm thinking you're running into something like this:
https://docs.nefarius.at/projects/HidHide/fixing-a-bricked-system/

I don't know, but I'm believing the general process to fix the M/KB issue as described in the link would apply to Steam's driver - would need to know what Steam stuff to remove in the registry though...
May be other ways to resolve things - don't have ideas at the moment...


Think to avoid the M/KB issue, you'd have wanted to remove Steam's driver via Steam > Settings > Controller > Xbox Extended Feature Support Driver > Uninstall, then judging from the info in that link, Steam does the proper uninstall by first removing the loading instruction/de-activating their driver, then uninstalling it.


I remember, some years back, removing Steam's driver with a tool to see if I could resolve the resulting M/KB issue. IIRC I didn't figure things out and ended up resorting to an OS re-install or something.

I'm curious to try again... gonna be making a restore point this time :D
Maybe could find the reg entries by comparing the registry after installing/uninstalling the driver via Steam...

[Comic Character 🗯]

Thank you! Same issue! Let's see if it helps!

[Freddy]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.