iCue causing hung PC at shutdown/sleep and BSoD problems

I am very frustrated with iCue software at this point. I am running Windows 10 2004 (latest updates) and have several Corsair devices that use iCue: K70 RGB Mk2, H115i Platinum, Vengeance RGB Pro (2x16GB). My computer is an AMD 3700x running on Asus Crosshair VI Hero (latest BIOS).

 

Back in April, I updated iCue to whatever the latest release was at the time. Prior, I was running some version released in 2019. Upon update, I immediately started having issues with sleep/shutdown/reboot. During anyone of these operations, Windows would appear to be going to sleep/shutdown/reboot as far as going to a blank screen, but the computer would sit there for 10-15 minutes and then finally turn off or reboot. Trying to use sleep would result in the computer just shutting down (maybe due to some timeout) and upon next boot, Windows would report that the computer was not shutdown properly. After a couple weeks furiously troubleshooting the problem, I discovered iCue was the root cause. With my investigation, I found that this newer iCue software was generating System event log events ID 13 (ACPI) errors (attached) periodically. As soon as I remove the software, they stop and sleep/shutdown/reboot works as normal.

 

So I tried out some earlier versions of iCue and found that 3.23.66 was stable, up until a few weeks ago. I installed 3.23.66 back in April and my PC was no longer exhibiting sleep/shutdown/restart issues and no event ID 13 (ACPI) errors in the log. Everything was fine until a few weeks ago.

Some time last month, maybe after installing Windows September updates, my computer started to randomly BSoD with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL stop code. Sometimes, I would not even be actively using the computer when it happens. This has been happening about once every few days on average and usually happens shortly after a new boot or awakening from sleep. Upon viewing the dump file using windbg.exe, the PROCESS_NAME is showing iCue.exe. Of course, I found this to be very frustrating that iCue is again causing terrible problems for my PC, especially since I have to WFH on this computer. So I decided to try out the latest version of iCue, 3.34.170 and now I am back to the problems I had when updating in April, as I figured. The event ID 13 (ACPI) errors have returned.

 

What am I supposed to do at this point? The last version that was working for me (3.23.66) is now causing BSoD and if I install anything after that, my computer will not sleep/shutdown/restart properly. Feature-wise, the software is great, but functionally it is very unreliable and causes nothing but headaches.

Edited November 3, 2020 by brandonm

I had, a little over two months ago, replaced by water color after my different branded one decided to eject its fan (in a very unimpressive manner, fortunately). The hardware of the Corsair seems to be running fine, but starting about a month ago, I began getting random sluggishness followed by freezes and failure to wake up from sleep. I've been repeatedly testing my RAM, updating/downgrading drivers, updating my X399 Taichi's BIOS to 3.90, changing power management in the BIOS, etc... all to no avail. After a recent automatic upgrade of the iCue software, I started getting BSOD for Driver Power State Failure or the IRQ not less than or equal on shutdown as well. The error report saves, but for some reason, the crash minidump does not; although, sometimes, but not always, did happen shortly after a Event ID 56 - ACPI 15 in the Event Log, so I assume there is a multidevice interaction related to the root cause.

 

All that said, since removing iCue from startup AND disabling the Corsair services, I have yet to have another freeze/crash or BSOD. I only restart it to set the fan and pump to a different profile and then exit again (a real pain, but it at least seems to keep the setting). I am hoping to see the root cause fixed since it makes it very difficult for me to do long running renders (which is difficult to run in the first place since the CPU generates more heat than any of the closed loop water coolers that will actually fit inside of the case seem to be able handle [stupid tradeoffs] and I think the VRM needs its own cooler loop, but that's another topic).

Thank you for you response.

I am glad to know that I am not the only one having this type of issue. I will try disabling the services. So your profiles will hold after temporarily enabling iCue to change profile, followed by disabling them again? That sounds like a PITA but I guess I can deal with it so long as it stops the issues. Starting/stopping services and processes is easily scriptable and could be setup to execute on logon, if that is all it takes.

 

EDIT: I was poking around in the iCue Settings. I am going to try out disabling SDK and Plugins (followed by restart service).

Edited October 27, 2020 by brandonm

Still having the shutdown/sleep issue with SDK and Plugins disabled on the newer iCue versions (3.34.170). I tried putting my computer to Sleep yesterday and again it gets as far as a shutting off video but hangs. After about 10 minutes the computer just powers off completely with an improper shutdown. No BSoD yet, but need more time to validate with 3.34.170. Still getting ACPI events in the log. Upon boot up, there was an additional error event (attached) similar to the one previously attached.

 

I am now going to try disabling Corsair services. Just going to start with the CorsairGamingAudioConfig and CorsairLLAService services for now.

 

EDIT: Just realized I uploaded the wrong event log screenshot. Correct one is now attached.

Edited October 28, 2020 by brandonm

If it isn't that, I am not sure, but I'll toss some random trivia to see if it gives a hint. Sorry I couldn't be more help. I'm mainly posting to draw extra attention in case there is need for Corsair to update their code and on the off chance that someone might get hints to some up with a workaround.

 

I know for another one of my machines that I had to disable the C6 powerstates in the BIOS to keep it from having weird behaviour specifically associated with sleeping in Windows and crashing (kernel panic) randomly in Linux.

 

The services themselves should be running in "user land" so they would not be *directly* causing the issue. The USB drivers should also be running in ring 3 and should be just doing an appcrash. Since it is doing a BSOD, this would suggest a ring 0, "kernel land," problem. More than likely it is associated with CPU state combined with accessing the CPU info (processor state and/or the actual internal temperature information). The fan controls are likely done as a motherboard peripheral. The light control should be a generic USB device (it probably is actually something like an Adrino in the hardware).

 

Uninstalling and reverting might be an option, but it should be to note that if the generic MS driver itself has changed (and there is a bug related to interrupt handling) then either MS will need to patch the issue, or Corsair will need to update for the change in the API.

Hey there, you are not alone. I got frustrated to a point and uninstalled the software today just so my PC runs as it should. I also have the sleep/hibernation issue you mention. In many cases the PC will not sleep automatically after the idle time threshold unless I manually force it to. Upon wake up, I've also received a BSOD a few times but I've also seen that lighting is sometimes messed up. This software doesn't play nice with MSi Mystic Light either. My biggest issue currently is that my sound is heavily distorted and skipping in an out from my speakers with the software installed. When I uninstall the software, my speakers and sound work fine immediately. heres the parts I currently am using for reference:

 

CPU Cooler: CORSAIR iCUE H150i RGB PRO XT

Headphone Stand: Corsair ST100 RGB

Headphone: VIRTUOSO RGB WIRELESS SE High-Fidelity Gaming Headset — Gunmetal

Fans: 6 CORSAIR QL Series, iCUE QL120 RGB, 120mm RGB LED Fan

Exterior LED: Corsair LS100

Keyboard: Corsair K95 RGB PLATINUM Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

Mouse: Corsair Dark Core RGB Pro SE, Wireless FPS/MOBA Gaming Mouse

Mobo: MSi Creator TR40

Further troubleshooting, I found something a bit interesting. I uninstalled AI Suite III and now I am getting extremely frequent Event ID 13 ACPI errors in the log (just errors, not the warnings). Far more then with AI Suite installed. So possibly the issue with iCue is connected to my Asus motherboard. AI Suite III is another "piece of work", but I always loaded it for the fan speed control stuff and dashboard. I guess I do not need it with the H115i as iCue looks to provide fan control. I am completely OK with removing AI Suite, but even doing so still has not resolved the shutdown problem. I could probably live with the event log errors if the shutdown problem was fixed, though they are really flooding the logs now.

 

I am in the process of trying to tear out all of the Asus garbage. Uninstalling AI Suite doesn't exactly remove everything. I cannot stand when developers do that lazy BS. There are drivers and services, including the fan control, still loaded which I have currently set to disabled on boot. I am going to get to the bottom of this. I thought of reloading my system, but to put it short, would be a great inconvenience for me at this time. I do have a spare drive that I could just load a fresh Windows on and install iCue to see if the problem does not exist. I may eventually get to that, but I still have some ideas to work with. On a positive note, still no BSoD with the newer iCue but that still needs more time to validate, as well as validate with fixing the shutdown/ACPI issue and BSoD issue together.

 

UDATE: I decided to uninstall iCue and reinstall since removing AI Suite and now I am just back to the ACPI Event ID 15 warnings with an occasional ID 13 error. The errors are not flooding the logs. Will report back later if shutdown is any different.

Edited October 29, 2020 by brandonm

Well, I am still several days without a crash or BSOD. Interestingly, I haven't seen any of the ACPI events since it was disabled entirely (I didn't go though uninstalling it since I need to change it to the high setting when I do rendering and such).

 

I had done some extra perusing and found the following in this same forum.

 

https://forum.corsair.com/Forums/showthread.php?p=979909

 

This suggests to me that there might actually be a flaw in the way that it is called in the related dll. CPUID is supposed to be only modifying 4 registers, if I member correctly, but that doesn't mean that some CPU microcode isn't doing some voodoo behind the scenes. There is also question whether the CPU flags could be altered during the change of power state related to sleep, which might affect whether interrupts are properly running (aside from the non-maskable, which should have a watchdog on it).

 

I should actually check to see if the fan and pump control is actually done via USB rather than the motherboard. If so, then if the USB controller delayed in waking, then there might be an access timeout or a race condition going about.

 

As far as laziness in programmers for uninstall, I hate the stuff being left behind myself. In some cases, the extra stuff, you don't want removed. I think the laziness is not having an advanced option to choose (and default to remove everything). Even worse than the filesystem are the dregs in the registry that always get left behind ready to monkey up the next install.

So sadly I am still facing the sleep issue after additional troubleshooting yesterday/today. The sound issue I was having was resolved by updating a few realtek drivers through windows update and reinstalling iCue.

 

Now, if I uncheck the 'Enable SDK' option in iCue, the PC behaves normally when I MANUALLY force the pc to sleep. It wakes up with no issues and work where I left off. I am not sure why this option needs to be off though? I cant use streamdeck without this option selected.

 

Additionally, the underlying problem is that my PC will still never enter sleep mode (after a given duration) unless I manually do it. The screen will turn off, but not the PC. Hoping there are some more responses or others with similar issues that have figured this out..

For Windows 10...

1. Open Settings->
   
2. Search for and open Power and Sleep ->
   
3. On right sidebar, choose Additional Power Settings and a legacy control panel applet should appear ->
   
4. For the selected plan, choose Change Plan Settings ->
   
5. There should be a link under the two drop downs called "Change advanced power settings" click it ->
   
6. A dialog should appear, expand each of the (+) icons and write down what is there and list it here.
   

 

That will give a point of reference for determining what the configured behaviour is. Of course, if you see something stupid (likely set my a manufacturer), then just use prudence when correcting. It should be to note that I had to disable selective USB suspend back when I first got my machine to correct a problem with my external hard drives, so that difference might be avoiding some issues without me knowing.

Attached are my power settings from powercfg.exe /query. It is the same as the GUI, but easier to generate. The USB selective suspend setting is enabled. I could test out disabling that (would have to be later). It is just unfortunate that if a Power setting makes a difference, it still doesn't solve what the problem is with iCue causing my sleep/shutdown problem. I can uninstall iCue and the computer will sleep/shutdown completely fine and the ACPI event messages will cease.

powercfg.txt

Well I believe I have made some progress! I did a number of things earlier and have successfully got my computer to go to sleep three times. I am still getting the ACPI errors, but I can live with those as long as my computer can shutdown/sleep properly.

 

Here is a summary of what I have done:

• Uninstalled AI Suite III.
  
• Disabled the services and drivers that were not removed by uninstalling AI Suite.
  

 

Neither of the previous made a difference, so here are the additional steps I have performed:

 

• Using sc.exe delete, I removed all remaining ASUS services and drivers not removed from uninstalling AI Suite.
  
• Deleted two ASUS driver files from Windows\SysWOW64\drivers: AsUpIO.sys and AsIO.sys
  
• Deleted the ASUS folder left under Program Files (x86).
  
• I noticed these warnings in the event log: The driver \Driver\WudfRd failed to load for the device PCI\VEN_5853&DEV_1003\1&79f5d87&3&03.
  Quick search for the device path led me to the "Citrix Indirect Display Adapter", installed by Citrix Workspace (I use for work). I disabled this adapter as I don't need it.
  
• Disabled power on wake for my mouse (HID-compliant mouse).
  

 

Again, I am still getting ACPI errors in the log, but my computer has successfully gone to sleep three times. I am not completely confident at this point, but after another day or so I think I will be. I hate when I only find a fix by performing a number of different things, since I don't know what fixed it, but that is typical with my troubleshooting. I may try to reverse the mouse and Citrix adapter changes if I confirm that the shutdown problem is resolved.

Well, that is good news. I did look over the power configuration output, but nothing stood out. I had forgotten about the command prompt query; so much for my A+.

 

Since I use an ASRock motherboard, I don't have the ASUS utility, so I cannot take a look at that potential root cause. I do note that besides the 3rd party cpuidsdk.dll used by iCue that there is a Corsair signed dll that might be a p/Invoke wrapper for .Net. That said, a broken p/Invoke (such as a improper freeing) should only do an AppCrash, not a BSOD, so I'm still leaning towards a driver or a microcode bug. I'd like to investigate that further, but I have too many projects going on to actually do so and I am pretty sure that Corsair would take issue with me doing so. Besides, even if I were to do it, I doubt their programmers would use anything I found to fix the issue (I at least assume that their backlog looks like mine).

 

As for the Citrix driver, I haven't used it in a while, but I did note that the virtual display doesn't play well with Unity applications. It probably does something funky with the way it releases and allocates the framebuffer (gotta love COM) which would occur during sleep and wake (DirectX is used by the Desktop Window Manager for all of the fancy visual stuff). As for whether it is related to the crashing, the only way to know is just to reinstall the driver and see if it breaks. As it stands, I've seen problems with multiple virtual display drivers besides that one in Windows including one used by an USB monitor that I have and a VNC server that I previously used.

 

As for the power on wake for the mouse, I don't think that would directly cause the issue. I have had issue previously with an USB expansion card when my trackball was plugged into it: the computer simply didn't wake. Moving the mouse to a built-in port solved that particular issue. I think the PCIe bus was powering down the card in that case.

Just to clarify, I think the BSOD issue may likely been from the older iCue version I was running (3.23.66) which I updated on Tuesday. The BSOD started to happen around the time that the Windows September CU was installed. I was only running that older version because every version after that was causing the shutdown problem. I also did not get the ACPI errors with 3.23.66, but I can live with those. I wish I could see what device iCue is trying to access when those are generated. I looked at the various logs, including debug, but was unable to correlate anything.

 

I also just want to say that Corsair does seem to try to improve iCue and fix these issues and they deserve credit for that. It is just very frustrating when a piece of non-essential software causes these types of issues, especially BSOD and shutdown problems. They are usually the last place to look. I wasted hours of troubleshooting other things, such as hardware, only to find the problem being caused by some RGB controller software. It makes me not want to even bother with it or look at other options. iCue has a nice feature set, but the functional problems are difficult to deal with.

Edited October 30, 2020 by brandonm

Well, to be honest, there is a lot of frustration on my end as well. I think that while not the most intuitive that the iCue software is more flexible that the one of my previous brand watercooler. That said, it is bad enough that Windows Update interrupt my long running renders, I do not need a BSOD also randomly doing so. Right now, I'm not running anything big, so I can do with leaving iCue closed except when needed, but I would rather it just work so I can move on to other things. I had been running the latest; although, I will check to see if there is a newer version that might just resolve my issues.

 

In regards to the timing with the Windows Update, I believe it. After the April update, I had to disable the WiFi until late May before the replacement network drivers came from the manufacturer. Apparently MS had changed some ACPI things then as well (not clear on what, but I imagine some sort of bug fix for something else) and it took some time for the driver to be released (I imagine that there was problem with reproducing the issue).

 

I do like that iCue will drop to the tray without a splash window or an UAC elevation like my previous software. I do wish that the UI portion it was separated into a fan/pump control only version (even if it only selects profiles) and a color control included version (yes, this is greedy) since in most cases I only need to change the pump/fan settings.

 

Just venting at this point, but the most annoying thing was the actual troubleshooting the issue itself. Running memtest86 multiple times, removing and adding peripherals, upgrading the BIOS, and uninstalling, reinstalling, downgrading, and upgrading drivers is time consuming and all-around troublesome. The gold standard for troubleshooting is using a fresh install, but when data caps become a problem and physical media being "no longer a thing," it is not always a practical solution; particularly when some of the software is 10's of gigs in download size.

PC failed to properly sleep last night :[pouts:, so back to the more testing. One thing I forgot to note in my list of steps was that after removing the remaining Asus services/drivers, I uninstalled iCue (including delete profiles) and reinstalled clean. I probably also restarted the services through iCue at some point.

After further troubleshooting, I think my only option is to go with the Stop/Disable Corsair services method and enable it briefly to just load the profile. Specifically, it is just the "Corsair Service" service, but I will just disable them all. Unfortunately, when disabling the service, my H115i goes into static color mode on whatever color it was on last at the moment the service was stopped, but oh well. Alternatively, I believe my computer will shutdown correctly if I just restart the Corsair Service right before I shut it down. It's weird that the shutdown problem only seems to occur after some time has passed since the service started. Regardless, I am just going to disable the services because that is the only way to guarantee clean shutdhown/sleep as well as stopping the ACPI errors from generating.

 

Anyways, here is the additional troubleshooting I performed:

One by one, I started removing Corsair services and drivers using sc.exe delete. I started with the CorsairGamingAudioService and CorsairAudioConfig and still was receiving ACPI errors. Next I moved on to CorsairLLAccess and CorsairLLAService and still was receiving ACPI errors. Next, I deleted just the CorsairVHidDriver, which also made no difference. Finally, I moved on to the big one, CorsairVBusDriver and CorsairService. It was only until then that the ACPI errors ceased. My theory is that the ACPI errors are related to the H115i Platinum AIO. Reason is that with all those services and drivers removed, iCue still launches and the only device that loads is the Keyboard and the profile loads fine to that. I am pretty sure it is not the Vengeance memory. I believe that device disappeared from iCue after deleting either one of the services or drivers that did not stop the ACPI errors.

 

For reference, here is a list of drivers and services that iCue installs:

CorsairGamingAudioService C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CorsairGamingAudio64.sys

CorsairGamingAudioConfig C:\Windows\System32\CorsairGamingAudioCfgService64.exe

CorsairVBusDriver C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CorsairVBusDriver.sys

CorsairVHidDriver C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CorsairVHidDriver.sys

CorsairLLAccess3B84E98236B28D4E075D5737DF9F567A1FB76E8A C:\Program Files (x86)\Corsair\CORSAIR iCUE Software\CorsairLLAccess64.sys

CorsairLLAService C:\Program Files (x86)\Corsair\CORSAIR iCUE Software\CueLLAccessService.exe

CorsairService C:\Program Files (x86)\Corsair\CORSAIR iCUE Software\Corsair.Service.exe

 

I wrote a little PowerShell script to Enable/Disable the Corsair services just to make things convenient. It is written into a function with cmdletbinding so you can import it with Import-Module and simply run Set-CorsairSvcs -State Stop|Start.

 

Function Set-CorsairSvcs
{
[cmdletbinding()]
Param
(
 [ValidateSet("Start","Stop")]
 [string]$State="Start"
)

$CorsairSvcs = (Get-Service | Where-Object {$_.Name -like "Corsair*"}).Name

If ($State -eq "Stop")
{
 Foreach ($s in $CorsairSvcs)
 {
  Set-Service $s -StartupType Disabled
  Stop-Service $s
 }
}

ElseIf ($State -eq "Start")
{
 Foreach ($s in $CorsairSvcs)
 {
  Set-Service $s -StartupType Automatic
  Start-Service $s
 }
}

}

Edited October 31, 2020 by brandonm

Another BSoD this morning. APC_INDEX_MISMATCH with PROCESS_NAME iCUE.exe. It's weird but I believe that I get a BSOD around the same time every Monday. Maybe iCUE.exe is running some scheduled process on Mondays.

 

I don't know what to do at this point other than completely uninstall iCue.exe.

@Corsair @CorsairSupport Can I get a ticket open? I can send whatever logs you need.

I was looking closer at the Debug Log and correlating it with the ACPI event log errors. Something interesting I see is that every time there is an ACPI error, the probe time is much longer than normal. Below is an example, where the normal probe time is around 1000 ms, while the probe at 16:14:47 was around 5000 ms. This 5000 ms probe timestamp looks to be consistent with every ACPI error timestamp. Also, why does it come back with a device count of 7? I only have the K70 Keyboard, H115i AIO (2x fans and water block), and two sticks of Vengeance memory. That should only be 6 devices if it counts each component of the H115i separately.

 

2020-11-03 16:14:41.5335 | 38 | INFO: DevicesMonitor | TIME = 1015(avg: 1015.17) ms

2020-11-03 16:14:41.5335 | 38 | INFO: DevicesMonitor | Devices: 7(39 sens.)

 

2020-11-03 16:14:42.5521 | 33 | INFO: DevicesMonitor | TIME = 1017(avg: 1015.17) ms

2020-11-03 16:14:42.5521 | 33 | INFO: DevicesMonitor | Devices: 7(39 sens.)

 

2020-11-03 16:14:47.7174 | 10 | INFO: DevicesMonitor | TIME = 5163(avg: 1017.30) ms

2020-11-03 16:14:47.7174 | 10 | INFO: DevicesMonitor | Devices: 7(39 sens.)

 

Also, I had two more BSoD today. I am very close to uninstalling iCue. I did open a support ticket with Corsair.

Edited November 3, 2020 by brandonm

Brandonn, iCUE also BSODs for me unless I remove all the CpuId .dll files. I've documented the .dll files here https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=200665&page=2 on post # 19. Basically, I have to always remove anything containing "cpuid" in it. Of course, this eliminates iCUE's ability to do system monitoring, but much better than having randomly BSOD.

Brandonn, iCUE also BSODs for me unless I remove all the CpuId .dll files. I've documented the .dll files here https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=200665&page=2 on post # 19. Basically, I have to always remove anything containing "cpuid" in it. Of course, this eliminates iCUE's ability to do system monitoring, but much better than having randomly BSOD.

 

Thank you. I will try this.

I think those cpuid DLL's are the problem. I renamed every *cpuid*.dll. It does stop the H115i AIO from RGB activity/monitoring, but I can live with that. And so far, it seems to have stopped the ACPI event errors and warnings. I need to test the shutdown issues, but so far, everything is looking positive. Thanks @ckong.

 

I tried something earlier that I though fixed it, but I was wrong (deleted that reply).