Question Continuous freezes after dpc_watchdog_violation bsod

[Arbrn]

Out of nowhere I had this error dpc_watchdog_violation today, wasn't doing anything special, no updates, no new software or hardware. Waited till it got to 100%, waited may be 10 minutes more, it wasn't going away so I restarted my pc. Now my system freezes everytime shortly after I boot windows - doesn't give an error, doesn't restart, nothing in event viewer, just a freeze and if I turn off my monitor and then back on I see white noise basically

1) happens in safe mode too in the same way
2) it seems the longer the computer is powered down, the longer it takes between loading of windows and a freeze
3) reinstalling graphics driver didn't help
4) tried different RAM - didn't help

I don't know much about this stuff but it seems like a hardware problem. What can it be? What can't it be? GPU, PSU, SSD, anything else? Any advice would be appreciated

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

1) happens in safe mode too in the same way
Might be a hardware error.

3) reinstalling graphics driver didn't help
Using DDU to remove all GPU drivers in Safe Mode, then manually installing the latest GPU driver sourced from Nvidia's support site in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator?

4) tried different RAM - didn't help
Might want to pass on the rams you've used. On second thoughts, please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

 

[johnbl]

Out of nowhere I had this error dpc_watchdog_violation today, wasn't doing anything special, no updates, no new software or hardware. Waited till it got to 100%, waited may be 10 minutes more, it wasn't going away so I restarted my pc. Now my system freezes everytime shortly after I boot windows - doesn't give an error, doesn't restart, nothing in event viewer, just a freeze and if I turn off my monitor and then back on I see white noise basically

1) happens in safe mode too in the same way
2) it seems the longer the computer is powered down, the longer it takes between loading of windows and a freeze
3) reinstalling graphics driver didn't help
4) tried different RAM - didn't help

I don't know much about this stuff but it seems like a hardware problem. What can it be? What can't it be? GPU, PSU, SSD, anything else? Any advice would be appreciated

best to upload the mini dump file to a cloud server, share it for public access so someone with a debugger can take a quick look.
in windows all device now have a watchdog timer go off if some hardware does not respond within a time out period.
each device has a different time out period.
cpu timeout is fastest(some number of clock ticks)
video time out is 2 seconds
drive time out is 30 seconds
usb time out is 300 seconds

the timeout value is listed in the first line of the with the bugcheck code.

best to let someone actually look at the mindump file and see the cause
Note: common for video timeout problem if you have more than one gpu overclock driver installed. Some of the overclock utilities do not uninstall the previous overclock driver when you install the updated version.
(stupid setup programs) It results in both driver applying a overclock, the second driver also overclocks the overclocked values and causes the hardware to miss its timing signals in the electronics. results in a timeout failure, old versions of windows would just hang.

 

[Arbrn]

best to upload the mini dump file to a cloud server, share it for public access so someone with a debugger can take a quick look.
in windows all device now have a watchdog timer go off if some hardware does not respond within a time out period.
each device has a different time out period.
cpu timeout is fastest(some number of clock ticks)
video time out is 2 seconds
drive time out is 30 seconds
usb time out is 300 seconds

the timeout value is listed in the first line of the with the bugcheck code.

best to let someone actually look at the mindump file and see the cause
Note: common for video timeout problem if you have more than one gpu overclock driver installed. Some of the overclock utilities do not uninstall the previous overclock driver when you install the updated version.
(stupid setup programs) It results in both driver applying a overclock, the second driver also overclocks the overclocked values and causes the hardware to miss its timing signals in the electronics. results in a timeout failure, old versions of windows would just hang.

Option to create minidump files was not enabled at that time, so I don't have it.

Opening file manager seems to trigger this problem especially quickly, running programs less so

 

[Arbrn]

In the process of copying a file from one disk to another received this error:

Event 18, WHEA-Logger
Reported by component: Processor Core
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: Cache Hierarchy Error
Processor APIC ID: 23

3) reinstalling graphics driver didn't help
Using DDU to remove all GPU drivers in Safe Mode, then manually installing the latest GPU driver sourced from Nvidia's support site in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator?

yes, removed drivers in safe mode

 

[johnbl]

if you can boot your machine then search your hard drive for *.dmp files.

a bugcheck for Machine Check Exception
is called by the cpu it is not called by a GPU.

most common cause for this would be:
-wrong overclocking in bios
- more than one overclock driver installed
- power supply not providing proper power voltages to cpu
- over heating of a CPU (check for stopped fans)

if you can boot you can run cmd.exe as an admin
then do the following commands
cd c:\
dir /s *.dmp > c:\outfile.txt
notepad.exe c:\outfile.txt

generally, minidump files are created by default but there are cases where they will be moved by the windows error reporting system and the windows live dump service

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I've seen this a few times with CPU and Motherboard failures.

 

[Arbrn]

if you can boot your machine then search your hard drive for *.dmp files.

a bugcheck for Machine Check Exception
is called by the cpu it is not called by a GPU.

most common cause for this would be:
-wrong overclocking in bios
- more than one overclock driver installed
- power supply not providing proper power voltages to cpu
- over heating of a CPU (check for stopped fans)

if you can boot you can run cmd.exe as an admin
then do the following commands
cd c:\
dir /s *.dmp > c:\outfile.txt
notepad.exe c:\outfile.txt

generally, minidump files are created by default but there are cases where they will be moved by the windows error reporting system and the windows live dump service

I see one .dmp file for Event 18, WHEA-Logger in LiveKernelReports and a couple of unrelated files, but nothing related to the original dpc_watchdog_violation, probably because my system froze and I restarted it.

I changed my power plan to power saver and it looks stable right now, so that fixed it, poor perfomance though. CPU voltage went down to 1.000 V if I read it correctly and in balanced power plan it was around 1.35-1.4. Does this mean that the problem is with the CPU itself? CPU is Ryzen 5950X and motherboard is an older B450, worked fine together for 3 years

Voltage goes up sometimes in power saver and speed is slow, is there a better way to do it? Like limit voltage to something higher than 1.00 V and go back to balanced power plan?

 

[johnbl]

I see one .dmp file for Event 18, WHEA-Logger in LiveKernelReports and a couple of unrelated files, but nothing related to the original dpc_watchdog_violation, probably because my system froze and I restarted it.

I changed my power plan to power saver and it looks stable right now, so that fixed it, poor perfomance though. CPU voltage went down to 1.000 V if I read it correctly and in balanced power plan it was around 1.35-1.4. Does this mean that the problem is with the CPU itself? CPU is Ryzen 5950X and motherboard is an older B450, worked fine together for 3 years

Voltage goes up sometimes in power saver and speed is slow, is there a better way to do it? Like limit voltage to something higher than 1.00 V and go back to balanced power plan?

knowing proper voltages for ryzen cpu version is outside my area of expertise. I avoid the amd cpus since I find it hard to find published cpu error/fix lists. Intel is much better about publishing the cpu buglists.

 

[shujinko]

Out of nowhere I had this error dpc_watchdog_violation today, wasn't doing anything special, no updates, no new software or hardware. Waited till it got to 100%, waited may be 10 minutes more, it wasn't going away so I restarted my pc. Now my system freezes everytime shortly after I boot windows - doesn't give an error, doesn't restart, nothing in event viewer, just a freeze and if I turn off my monitor and then back on I see white noise basically

1) happens in safe mode too in the same way
2) it seems the longer the computer is powered down, the longer it takes between loading of windows and a freeze
3) reinstalling graphics driver didn't help
4) tried different RAM - didn't help

I don't know much about this stuff but it seems like a hardware problem. What can it be? What can't it be? GPU, PSU, SSD, anything else? Any advice would be appreciated

I'm struggling with this exact problem right now, and I've spent a small fortune trying to swap every component in my computer and change every possible environmental variable in my control. Weeks now swapping parts and reinstalling the OS. Nothing is working. Sometimes I go a week without seeing it, and then it'll happen for multiple days straight. Same as you, I'm not doing anything special when it occurs. As as matter of fact, I don't think it has ever happened while gaming or running a strenuous workload.

The only thing I would say is not the case for me is that the length of power-down has no effect on the frequency of the issue.

I have to conclude at this point, for me at least, that this is a driver or software issue of some kind.