Windows stops with MEMORY MANAGEMENT code on low latency storage

Solution Verified - Updated

Environment

  • OpenShift Container Platform 4.20
    • OpenShift Virtualization 4.20
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6
    • qemu-kvm-9.1.0-15.el9_6.18.x86_64
  • Microsoft Windows Guest
    • virtio-win-1.9.50-0.el9_6

Issue

  • Windows Virtual Machines BSOD with "MEMORY MANAGEMENT" code (0x1A).
  • There is no storage latency present at the time, its not Windows stops with MEMORY MANAGEMENT code.
  • Increasing or decreating the IoTimeoutValue makes no difference.

Resolution

  • Please upgrade the Guest drivers to virtio-win-1.9.53-0.el9_6 or later. This was fixed by RHBA-2026:2280.
  • As a workaround, in In RHEL KVM, disable multiqueue in the domain XML by adding queues='1' to each virtio-blk disk:
    <disk type='block' device='disk' model='virtio-non-transitional'>
      <driver [...] queues='1'/>
      [...]
    </disk>

Root Cause

Diagnostic Steps

  • Monitoring shows very low latency on the storage devices of the VM disks prior and at the time of the BSOD.
  • No Event 129 in Windows Guest Event Logs.
Components
Category

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