Pull the Sound card & every USB device except the KB & Mouse
 
Also with the Intel driver issue - disconnect all hard drives except the boot drive - M.2?
 
- if your other HD(s) were installed when you loaded W11 - you may get a Windows error, when trying to run without them connected, which is why I only install the Boot Drive when loading Windows

SON OF GUN!!
 
 I unhooked the DVD ROM And the serial IO driver was installed without a hitch!!  WHAT ON EARTH!!  The DVD was working fine though??
 
I need to do some more testing!!   I might reinstall windows 11 fresh from a flash drive if this works!!
 
 
NOT getting too excited yet...BUT!

 That I don't know yet, but I just tried another chipset driver, and WAM it went right on.  I could try my USB TV card, I haven't installed that yet. 
 
I'm still getting a fatal hardware error at boot in the Event log though, that bothers me.
 
Think I should try new windows install this time from a flash drive?? I have never done that before, I guess it couldn't hurt??
 
I'm going to put my M.2 back in the Gen 4 slot and my 11900k back in, see what happens!!
 
What's my next step here?? Should I try plugging things in one at a time? 
 
 
PS: Hey guys, will that thermal pad goop that sticks to the motherboard after you remove your M.2 hurt the motherboard??

 I'm going to try the DDU and change the video card driver, BUT, I'm going to put the sound card back in first, JUST to see if that works.
 
 Before I go through all that other stuff or reinstall.
 
MAN, I wish I could have found this out yesterday, NO WAY did I think that DVD would cause this issue. 
 

 Ok, I cleared the log file, restarted and reset the BIOS, restarted and loaded my same profile, put the sound card back in, it didn't work at first, had to go into BIOS and reset the PCIe slot to Gen 3, reloaded windows, Fatal ERROR is GONE (For now, fingers crossed), ran the Creative driver (and if anything will lock a PC, it's a creative labs driver) and BAM it works!! Sound works, the driver worked (didn't have to 2 it twice). 
 
 I'm NOT going to get too excited just yet, this has been an ordeal. BUT I think I'm going to plug these hard drives back in one at a time, see what happens.
 
 Man, that Cool GTX...is DAMN COOL in my book!! If he was here I'd let him kiss my wife!  (and believe me, after the past few days...she would)
 
I STILL have to test that DDU, but I'm scared right now....I'm gonna just sit here a few minutes...and just enjoy no errors or Blue/Black screens...

 No, it was plugged into one of the SATA ports.
 
 I just ordered a USB 3.0 external, for my recording and making my DVD's, that way I can plug it in when I want to use it and put it away when not.
 
 I just plugged in all of my HD's, windows booted fine and then I installed my USB TV card, and where last night it locked my PC about 30 times, it installed this time with NO ERRORs..
 
This amazes me, it just truly amazes me.  All that time wasted, just to find out it was a faulty/or incompatible DVD player.... lol  By the way, The ONLY thing I didn't pull out of the PC...until today.
 
Oh well, I learned a lot about the new-gen stuff and windows 11 though, I NEEDED a refresher course anyway.
 
I'm not completely done testing, BUT, I hope to come back here today and say...Problem solved.
 
 
Now I gotta go find that MS tech and tell him to stop looking through my log files.....

Looks like you found an issue with DVD drive ... the drive, that SATA port or the SATA cable - could be any of those
 
"When you don't know what it is" -- "find out what it's not" ... has been my troubleshooting motto for a very long time
 
Removing all but the basic parts is always a good troubleshooting starting point.
 
Give an update when you have played a few days
 

great, happy to help
 
enjoy your new build

this is exactly why my builds now don't have a single thing plugged into SATA.  minimal components reduces potential points of failure.  no dvd drives, no SATA hard drives....  big storage is an external HDD or NAS.  Keep the beast lean and clean.  

One week later, and EVERYTHING works perfectly. I Ran DDU, installed the latest Nvidia driver, no problems whatsoever, I even installed a new Plextor DVD burner, I like editing and making my own home movies and I make copies of my music disks for my truck, so I needed one.
 
 The system is strong, stable, and runs cool, got my voltages right where I want them for now and after the holiday rush at work, I'm going to try some overclocking!!
 
 
Thanks one more time to all y'all that helped, such a great community here at EVGA, quality products, quality service, quality people, what more could you ask for.
 
SOLVED.
 

rblaes_99
this is exactly why my builds now don't have a single thing plugged into SATA.  minimal components reduces potential points of failure.  no dvd drives, no SATA hard drives....  big storage is an external HDD or NAS.  Keep the beast lean and clean.  

 
THIS right here!! This is a definite MUST for every future install I do from now on!!  Here I was blaming the new parts when it was the oldest part of the system, and even though a DVD rom works to install windows, doesn't mean it's not the problem!!
 
lesson learned.
 

 Well, after how many weeks of constant strong running, 11-hour gaming sessions, burning disks and making videos, installing at least a hundred apps and add-ons for several flight simulators, I got ANOTHER BSOD the other day just trying to update iCUE software for my Corsair keyboard and RGB ram.
 Again, no dump log was created, and again after rebooting the “Microsoft-Windows-WHEA-Logger” error was back in my event viewer.
 
 I tried unplugging every single device one at a time to try and get rid of the event viewer error, but nothing seemed to work.
 
Not until I unplugged the PC and plugged it back in, after that the error was gone in the event viewer again.
 
Of course, it came back as soon as I tried to install the update for iCUE, BUT HERE IS THE KICKER, I let the PC sit at the BSOD for 2 hours, hoping that it would eventually create a log file (which it did not) and upon resetting the PC….THE iCUE update had been completed and the software was installed and working? (REMEMBER now, it crashed at 13% installing….) sooo, what the heck?
 
I also tried someone else’s 32gig of 3200 RAM that we KNOW is working properly  (just to make sure it was not the ram), and it made no difference, so other than the motherboard (and the creative sound card) every other piece of hardware has been replaced/tested.
 
 Anyways, after scouring the internet, and seeing this type of behavior on many “different” systems getting WHEA errors or BSOD’s, they all seem to have one thing in common….Windows 11
 
 It appears that either windows 11 “certified” drivers NEED to be used, OR, some kind of BIOS update needs to be done to make the new OS and “something” in the newest hardware (I have no idea what) work together properly.
 
 I don’t know, I’m not a full-time tech guy, I make fine jewelry…lol, BUT, it seems to happen mostly to people who install windows 11 raw on a Z590/Z570 chipset (or buy a pre-built windows 11 system), NOT to folks that install windows 10 and then upgrade….WHY? I have no idea…not a tech guy.
 
Anyways, if I remove EVERY device (including drives and sound card) I can install whatever I want, that is just not a great option. Also the system benchmarks well, runs strong, and in EVERY OTHER WAY is stable, I even run P3Dv5 and it literally uses ALL of my video ram and 15 to 20 GB of my 32gig physical ram, runs fine. and runs for hours.
 
So who knows……BUT I’m not installing windows 10 just to test my theory, I have too many hours invested in this already, the system runs, and the drivers eventually update even if the system BSOD’s as long as I let it sit, so who knows……

As Sajin said, I would also recommend Windows 10

That Z590 Dark has a built-in sound card, it could be conflicting with your Creative AE-7.
 
As for the iCUE software, I have never had any luck with it, it seems to conflict with my motherboard's software for measuring temps, clock speeds and loads... and it does not seem to matter what motherboard I attempt to run it with. Make sure you are not running anything in addition to the EVGA software, if you attempt to run that at the same time as something like MSI Afterburner, you will definitely have high chances of a blue screen.

I would also ditch the add in sound card. I can't tell you how many system failures I've worked on that ended up being bad creative sound cards.

 I also have iCUE 4, and I wouldn't use it at all except for the corsair RGB stuff that drives me crazy if it's not all the same color. Everything needs to be blue for me for some reason...
I really didn't want the  RGB ram, but I couldn't seem to find what I wanted without it. And the keyboard was just on sale.....
 
 I don't think I'm going to switch over to Windows 10 at this time, I have too much going on the reinstall every app again, I'll try to find a workaround, and letting it just sit in the BSOD for an hour or so seems to work.
 
 I MIGHT be my sound card, but I have the onboard sound disabled so I don't think it's that?  I would hate to lose that wonderful sound though it goes PERFECT with my 5.1 speakers and sounds amazing!!
MAYBE I can contact Creative about it?? Might be worth a try.
 
 
anyways, I think I'm going to try some overclocking....what can it hurt at this point.
 
PS: That is interesting about the AE-7 and the newer hardware, the sound card series is not that old that it should be outdated?? And I don't get ANY errors or lockups while running any of the software, and I have several profiles that I use with it and even use some of the presets.
 
BUT, the lockups did happen before the creative drivers were installed, so it could be a hardware compatibility error??
 
who knows, I wish windows could just TELL US what the problem is, it makes no sense.
 

hehe....  i also use the "corsair blue" color profile.  
 
my mouse.  Dark Core SE, 
my keyboard: K100
my headset: Virtuoso SE.  
my CPU cooler: corsair vengence
 
all corsair blue and all slipstream.  I think icue4 is pretty good.