Bluescreen of death while using IDE: "Stop code: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"

Development Tools IDE 2.x
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Continuing the discussion from How can I shrink my code?:

IMG_20250216_154537
IMG_20250216_1545371920×2560 235 KB

It worked but at what cost

How can I shrink my code?
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Could be just coincidents, but it's discouraging, sure.

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Hi @mehmet_ozi.

We have had a few reports of "blue screen of death" (BSoD) occurring while using Arduino IDE under certain conditions:

Which version of Arduino IDE are you using?

Does the Arduino board you are using have the WCH CH340 USB chip?:

CH340
CH340223×151 63 KB

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SparkFun - CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

Or maybe this mysterious unlabeled variant?:

unlabeled SOIC-16 IC
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NodeMCU Lua Lol1n V3.jpg by Popolon - CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

Was your board running the sketch from post #1 at the time the BSoD occurred? Or was it running a different sketch? I ask because the bug I am thinking of only occurs when a large amount of data is printed to the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor, but that sketch doesn't produce any on the USB serial port (though the ESP32 can still sometimes produce debugging serial output even when the sketch code doesn't).

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hello. it was running the same sketch. I actually gave in and found It was and driver issue. I think its a ch340

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Hello again @mehmet_ozi. A potential fix has been made in the serial-monitor helper tool that provides communication between the Arduino IDE Serial Monitor tool and the serial port of the Arduino board:

Arduino IDE automatically updates the serial-monitor when a new version is available, so the version with the fix (0.15.0) should already be installed on your computer and in use by Arduino IDE.

I already verified that the change another problem that affected boards with the CH340 chip (arduino/arduino-create-agent#1000). However, I was never able to reproduce the problem reported here, so I am not able to check whether it is fixed or not.

Please check to see if the problem occurs when using the latest driver version and then add a reply here on the forum topic to let me know what you found.

I'll provide instructions you can follow to do that:

  1. Connect the Arduino board to your computer with a USB cable.
  2. Open the Windows Device Manager.
  3. Select View > Devices by type from the Device Manager menus.
  4. Open the "View" menu.
  5. If there is a ✓ to the left of the "Show hidden devices" menu item, click on "Show hidden devices" to disable it.
  6. Open the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section of the Device Manager tree.
  7. You should see a port identified as "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COMn)" under the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section (where "COMn" is some serial port e.g., COM4). Double click on that item.
    The "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COMn) Properties" dialog will open.
  8. Select the "Driver" tab of the "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COMn) Properties" dialog.
  9. Click the "Update driver" button.
    An "Update Drivers Device - USB-SERIAL CH340 (COMn)" dialog will open.
  10. Click on "Search automatically for drivers" in the "Update Drivers Device - USB-SERIAL CH340 (COMn)" dialog.
  11. You should now see the driver installation wizard update the driver. Wait for the update to finish, as indicated by the message "Windows has successfully updated your drivers" in the dialog.
  12. Click the "Close" button in the "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COMn) Properties" dialog.
  13. Close Windows Device Manager.
  14. Save any unsaved work that might be present in your open applications to ensure you won't lose anything if a BSoD does occur.
  15. Start Arduino IDE.
  16. Upload the "hello" test sketch to the board:
    void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
  Serial.println("hello");
  delay(5);
}
  17. Open Serial Monitor.

Hopefully this time a BSoD will not occur.

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