Question Has anyone done a clean install of Win11 on an AMD 7000 series laptop?

[mikeymikec]

I'm trying to do a clean install of Win11 RTM on a brand-new laptop but it's crashing after the first reboot with IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL. The laptop is the latest generation of a model I've been using for many years now and I've never had any trouble before installing Win10 or Win11 on such laptops.

My two theories are basically a hardware or software fault. I'm hoping that if it's a hardware issue that it's something that's easy to pin down with say memtest86. I'm just downloading a Win11 23H2 ISO in case there's something weird going on with AMD 7000 for notebooks and Win11 which hopefully does not affect a version newer than RTM.

 

[mikeymikec]

It looks like this new generation of laptop doesn't like Win11 RTM; using Win11 23H2 install media seems to have done the trick. I will definitely put this laptop through some more testing than usual, especially a memory test just in case (as soon as I can convince to run memtest86, it didn't like my 7.4 CD).

 

[igor_kavinski]

It looks like this new generation of laptop doesn't like Win11 RTM

Thanks for the info. However, I prefer to recreate the USB install media if my version is older than the currently available update. Saves me from the hassle of waiting for that update to be applied.

 

[mikeymikec]

Thanks for the info. However, I prefer to recreate the USB install media if my version is older than the currently available update. Saves me from the hassle of waiting for that update to be applied.

I prefer the flipside argument that getting a computer to do more work successfully constitutes more testing; I would still be using Win10 1607 for Win10 installs if Windows Update consistently allowed an update path through to the latest feature update These days I start from 1803.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I prefer the flipside argument that getting a computer to do more work successfully constitutes more testing

I guess that makes sense and gives you peace of mind that the PC worked fine for several hours before you handed it over to your customer.

 

[Tech Junky]

I just use whatever the latest image is w/ all of the pertinent patches rolled in already. Less hassle to deal with WU which tends to break stuff when applying updates.

The IRQ message though to me means AMD is fudging things when it comes to allocations of PCIE lanes. I see a bit of this on my new AMD build when I move things around on the MOBO. It took a few attempts to get things solidly registered when doing reboots and not change things with the PCI numbers. Even just reseating things or switching slots presents issues. When it comes to laptops there should be less of this nonsense though since most things are soldered into place other than RAM / Drive / WIFI. I suppose it's possible with a higher end setup to have a swappable GPU/CPU at least on the Intel side.

Windows though tends to be less fussy about things than Linux which is what I'm running on the AMD setup. The other thing that bugs me about switching back to AMD is this whole AGESA thing. It seems to be a free for all on deploying it for UEFI updates and it's a bit hit or miss. I had to try 2-3 different versions before ironing out all of the kinks in the boot process. This could be the source of some of your pain.