This blog is mostly for me to remember what I did to fix the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) problem with my new laptop.

First of all I HATE Windows with every fiber of my being.   However, I have a CNC machine and the best design software in the world comes from Vectric which is Windows only.  So I bought a cheap laptop.  An Acer Aspire 5 A514-54-501Z from Walmart.  Not sure when it happened, but probably after an update or installation of some program but I started getting the dreaded BSOD with only a KMODE Exception Not Handled.  The computer would boot loop with the BSOD every time but if I did a hard shutdown and restart it would boot however, then it would start without Wifi Drivers.  The next reboot would clear it up.

That’s too much frustration.  Googling the KMODE error basically just said “It”s probably a driver issue” with no more details.  Since it seemed the Wifi driver wasn’t getting loaded after a BSOD I guessed it was that one.   I did a Search For New Driver in Device Manager and it said I had the latest.   Yeah.  Not true.  Seems there was a new Wifi Driver put up about 2 weeks ago.  Probably for the BSOD issue.  My device showed as this in the Device Manager

Wireless LAN Driver (MT7921)

Acer WiFi Driver

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First let me say, “I AM A MAC GUY”.  We can also say that “I AM A LINUX GUY”.  I am most definitely NOT a Windows guy.  All this being said I am also a Maker, or we used to say in the old  days…….a Geek.

I have a lot of hobby type hardware such as Lasers, Vinyl sign machines, 3D printers, and CNC machines.  These things all have Mac or Linux software of some kind but the cream of the crop software is written for Windows.   While I can function on most of the hardware platforms with Mac, the straw that broke the camels back was my newly found love of CNC.   The best CNC software, hands down, comes from Vectric, and the new CNC machine I bought comes with Vectric VCarve Desktop.  The only computers I own with Windows on it are an old 3rd generation Intel i3 laptop with a tiny amount of RAM and a copy of Windows 10 on Parallels for Mac M1.  By the way, Parallels on a Mac M1 runs about as efficiently and trustworthy as the Government.  And it isn’t portable as I have it on a Mac Mini.  My CNC is in a back yard shed which is either too hot or too cold and I want to do all my prep and design work in the house and run out with the laptop just when it is time to set up the job on the machine.

A new Windows laptop was really my only choice here.  Here were my working parameters:

• Cost –  Always the first consideration.  I only want to use this to run VCarve Software.
• Availability – I wanted a computer I could run to the store and get and return if necessary.  Buying a computer by mail can be a horrible PITA if something goes wrong.
• Upgradability – The laptop I chose can have RAM, and the M.2 SSD upgraded and it has an un-used place for a 2.5″ SSD SATA drive.
• At least an Intel i5 chip
• Upgradeable to Windows 11

I ended up buying an Acer Aspire 5 from Walmart, specifically the:

I hit all 5 of the wickets I listed above. Now lets go a little deeper.
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